Welcome to Eye Matter Matters issue 14. This is a fortnightly publication where Eye Matter shares news and information about events and activities, members’ experiences, and other items of interest. Unless otherwise indicated, all articles have been contributed by Fiona Musgrove. If you would like to contribute an article to a future edition, please contact Fiona at: fiona@eyematter.org.uk
This edition includes:
Eye Matter Zoom events
- Sweet Dreams with Eye Matter – Steve Wax provides a talk about sleep and 50 ways of how to improve it.
- Are you a confident iPhone and Android user willing to share your knowledge?
Eye Matter Outings
- An audio described tour of Sparkle in the Park 2024, in partnership with Festival.org
- An audio described performance of Robin Hood Panto
- Ben Elton: Authentic Stupidity- Stand Up Comedy Tour.
Special features
- The blind leading the blind – follow our Italian adventure
- Hey “What’s Going On?” with Eye Matter and Lesta Woo.
- The latest brilliant improv comedy session with Eye Matter
- “Being funny makes me not feel invisible” (Ruby Wax, September 2024)
- Eye Matter’s first in-person Grief Counselling workshop, hosted by Joanne (“Jo”) Williams on September 28, 2024, in King’s Cross, London.
- Part 3: The delivery of audio description and training into UK theatres featuring VocalEyes.
Eye Matter Zoom events
Keep up to date with our activities here.
Highlights include:
Sweet Dreams with Eye Matter – Steve Wax provides a talk about sleep and 50 ways of how to improve it.
On Tuesday 8th of October. On our Zoom account- 6pm to 8pm (social hour beforehand). During this workshop, we will discuss why we sometimes find it challenging to have a good night sleep. We will also discuss how lack of sleep might affect the function of our brain. Lastly, we will explore 50 approved methods of improving our sleep patterns.
If you would like to join us, please email: suzie@eyematter.org.uk
Are you a confident iPhone and Android user willing to share your knowledge?
We are seeking confident iPhone and Android users within our membership who are interested in sharing their skills with other visually impaired individuals. To support this initiative, we are excited to introduce our new Volunteer VoiceOver Training Manager, Charu Bansal, alongside volunteer IT Trainer Mark Evans, who will facilitate a short training program designed to enhance your teaching abilities.
Our first training session is scheduled for October 29th at 2 PM. If you would like to learn how to effectively teach iPhone VoiceOver or Android TalkBack skills.
Click here to our Facebook page to read more:
To sign up for the teaching training, please email us with the subject line “Teach.”
Eye Matter Outings
Find all our events here
Highlights include:
An audio described tour of Sparkle in the Park 2024, in partnership with Festival.org
Sunday 1st December
Meeting at 4pm at Woolwich Station, Elizabeth Line and travelling to site together by bus. Returning to Woolwich Station at approximately 7pm.
Sparkle in the Park 2024 is a free audio-described holiday event at Charlton House with a large-scale light trail and soundscape experience.
There will also be a choir, markets (food, crafts, gifts etc.), and a fun fair.
For more information and to sign up, email suzie@eyematter.org.uk with subject ‘sparkle’
An audio described performance of Robin Hood Panto
At the London Palladium
8 Argyll St, London W1F 7TF
On Thursday 9th January 2025 at 7:30pm
Touch tour time tbc
Meet and greet at Oxford Circus Station time tbc
Tickets are £25.50 each
To buy your ticket email suzie@eyematter.org.uk with subject ‘Panto’
Ben Elton: Authentic Stupidity- Stand Up Comedy Tour.
At the Duke of York theatre
St Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4BG
On Saturday 18th January 2025
Performance starts at 7:30pm
Meet and greet at 6:45pm at Leicester Square Station
Tickets are £20.13
To buy your ticket, email suzie@eyematter.org.uk with subject ‘Stupidity’
You can also keep up to date with events on our Facebook page: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02wFmBPyPqoVHQgMMwjUPp4BKtp9gcjK8BGKgViyXHavTZkUY4KZ8jDxXSHJEXwdJfl&id=100064088379673
Where you can join the Eye Matters members’ group.
Special Features
The blind leading the blind – follow our Italian adventure
With around 2000miles stomped across England, France, Switzerland and now down into Italy Richard and Fiona are on the last leg of their mammoth trek. It has been an amazing adventure tasting new food, meeting some great people, and showing to the world blindness is no barrier to enjoying life. Richard’s determination and sense of fun has led them up and down mountains, across fields., over planks of wood spanning a river and down into a snowy valley where they began their Italian adventure.
On Tuesday 8th October they land once again back to where they left off, in Pisa. After a quick look around this leaning towered city they will be making their way on foot (approximately 200 Miles) towards Rome.
Fiona will be raising money to support the many projects Eye Matter delivers to nearly 300 members across the UK. These include access to a mental health and wellbeing blog, regular group counselling, trips to theatres, museums and so many exciting Zoom events.
You can follow their adventures through Facebook and Instagram.
If you would like to donate to Eye Matter, please click here: https://www.justgiving.com/page/eyematter
Hey “What’s Going On?” with Eye Matter and Lesta Woo.
Lesta Woo (a visually impaired Dance teacher) (in collaboration with Illuminate Freedom Health and Well-Being) hosted an energetic Lindy Hop session via Zoom for Eye Matter members on September 17, 2024. Participants learned the techniques of the perfect Twist and listened to various tracks from James Brown, Marvin Gaye, and Nina Simone. “Dancing has always been part of my life,” said Lesta. From a young age, and for many years, she studied modern dance, ballet and tap before being able to demonstrate her skills at various venues whilst at university.
Although Lesta confesses she doesn’t have a favourite dance style, she expresses the sensation of freedom she feels while dancing to the rhythms and compelling momentum of the chords of Jazz and Swing music. “Being able to connect fully to music, to the person you are dancing with and with the earth brings me a lot of joy,” she admits, “especially since connection is something I felt I was losing through sight loss.”
In Eye Matter’s first session with Lesta (August 2024), participants were taught the principles of the Charleston, which is regularly featured on the BBC’s “Strictly Come Dancing”. (Coincidentally, “Strictly” is choreographed by some of Lesta’s own dance teachers, Ryan François, and Jenny Thomas.). Having been featured on such a high-profile broadcast, this dance style has attracted new fans and become popular among both able-bodied and disabled viewers. “I think it’s amazing that a VI person – Chris McCausland – is on the show this year,” she said.
Jazz and Swing have roots in African American culture. In the 1930/1940’s, Lindy Hop emerged from this musical fusion of expressions, out of the ball rooms in Harlem, New York. It was an example of social inclusion in a country still divided by the colour of their skins, let alone having an impairment… Lindy Hop was effectively the street dance of that era. It was all about expression of freedom through movement which provided an escape for some of those who experienced oppression (including disabled people).
Lesta is teaching us a solo version of this dance but, Lindy Hop is traditionally a partner dance created to encourage social inclusion. Even today there are limited opportunities for disabled people to compete reflecting a problem first incurred by one of its founders Jimmy Valentine. Despite only having one leg he competed and beat, non-disabled dancers, at the Harvest Moon Ball (1940) in New York. Although this launched Jimmy’s career, particularly dancing the Lindy Hop, it wasn’t his disability that stopped him advancing.
In contrast, today, As a VI dance teacher, Lesta has developed her own techniques especially when teaching via Zoom. About her work with Illuminate Freedom, she highlights Jazz as a community-driven dance form and that compliments the organisation’s ethos of providing community projects for VI people.
If you would like more information about this opportunity or would like to participate in our next session, please email: suzie@eyematter.org.uk
Follow Lesta here:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566630082055
https://www.instagram.com/dis_swing_thing?igsh=MnV0aXR1dWtwczVt&utm_source=qr
The latest brilliant improv comedy session with Eye Matter
On Saturday September 21, 2024, 10 Eye Matter members participated in various games and scenarios at the Confidence Building Workshop hosted by Vic Hogg and Steve Reed.
One member described how the workshop enabled her to feel uninhibited when expressing herself through comedy. The facilitators explained that everyone may experience feeling unable to convey opinions, and sometimes using different techniques such as comedy can alter another person’s attitude. Participants shared examples of how sight loss has left them feeling less confident.
Other points of discussion included the concept of “status,” and how easy it can be to judge others. Participants noted how VI people make assumptions about others based on their voices, tones, and interactions rather than facial expressions.
For more information and to sign up for a future confidence-building workshop, please email: suzie@eyematter.org.uk with the subject title “Confidence Workshop”.
“Being funny makes me not feel invisible” (Ruby Wax, September 2024)
In a change to the lighter-hearted performances members usually attend, 32 Eye Matter members and volunteers attended Ruby Wax’s “I’m Not as Well as I Thought I Was” at London’s Ambassadors Theatre.
From the outset, Wax’s reputation as a brash diva was dramatically upended, as she appeared on stage wearing a cozy, pair of pink pyjamas. In her monologue, Ruby tackled the taboos against discussing mental health, and the array of emotions this triggered in herself and others.
Ruby was born in the US in 1958 to Austrian Jews who had fled Vienna just ahead of WWII. She came to the UK in the 1970s and enrolled in the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her first notable appearance was as loud-mouthed American Shelly DuPont in the ITV sitcom “Girls On Top” (1985-1986). This role placed her among Britain’s top female comedians – alongside Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Tracey Ullman, and Joan Greenwood – with whom she worked for many years.
“I’m Not as Well as I Thought I Was” was the first show without live AD that some Eye Matter members have attended. However, Ruby described the sights and sounds of her surroundings in such vivid detail that it seemed as if this was for the benefit of Eye Matter members.
Ruby also hosted a question-and-answer session for the audience of 400 during which she revealed that working with the Royal Shakespeare Company was the highlight of her career.
Click here to read the full article along with photos on Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0roVjKt6SBqMVSZgu1bSr8aQM1DnsxTHmSvDhigBTZeaBrJSyzmwzvNpVeWwowrSGl&id=100064088379673
Eye Matter’s first in-person Grief Counselling workshop, hosted by Joanne (“Jo”) Williams on September 28, 2024, in King’s Cross, London.
Members discussed the subject of giving and receiving help: why it can be so hard to accept that we need help in the first place, and even harder to ask for it. The session touched on what may be going through our minds when we need help, how it feels to be helpless, and how helping others can be therapeutic.
“It was beautiful to share space, thoughts and feelings with friends,” said Eye Matter member Charmain. “I’d wholeheartedly recommend these sessions, both via Zoom and in person…Such a brilliantly supportive space – thank you, everyone.”
Another member said, “Thank you so much for today’s session on Grief. It was really informative, and I felt empowered from all the different feedback given by other members. Also, I appreciated Suzie’s advice and together with Jo, they both empowered us all with suggestions on how to express our concerns to others.”
For more advice and strategies about coping with grief, please see Jo’s new blog on the Eye Matter website: https://www.eyematter.org.uk/eye-matter-blog-by-joanna-williams-psychotherapeutic-counsellor-specialising-in-grief-and-loss/
Eye Matter would like to thank therapist Joanne Williams for supporting participants during the emotional session. Likewise, Eye Matter thanks volunteers Hayley and James for escorting members to/from the station.
If you would like to take part in an upcoming Grief Counselling session, please email us.
Part 3: The delivery of audio description and training into UK theatres, featuring VocalEyes.
This is part of our series exploring the development and delivery of formal audio description (AD) into UK theatres, focusing on VocalEyes –
VocalEyes was formed in 1998 by Andrew Holland, an audio describer originally based at London’s National Theatre. It provides training, advice, and other resources to professional audio describers, who in turn offer live and recorded AD in theatres, museums, and arts heritage organisations. Its website and ‘What’s On’ newsletter list events and links to relevant audio notes.
Following an initial grant from the National Lottery, VocalEyes received additional funding that was used to launch the “See of Voice” project: this enabled 26 regional theatres and two touring companies to provide AD by 2010.
In 2008, 168 blind and visually-impaired (VI) people attended an audio-described performance of “Les Misérables”, putting VocalEyes into the “Guinness Book of World Records”:
https://guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-audience-for-audio-described-theatre
VocalEyes works with a range of venues and producers to deliver audio described performances. Based on a preliminary discussion about the production – which may involve awareness training, VocalEyes will work with the production team to implement the full AD scenario. This includes a pre-recorded audio introduction (also available in print); a touch tour shortly before the performance, giving participants access to the set, props, and costumes; and the live AD during the performance, broadcast to blind and VI audience members through headphones.
In 2023 VocalEyes arranged a survey of the websites of 465 venues to determine, among other things, how many publicised an audio-described performance. The research revealed 414 for that year – a significant decrease from the 897-odd AD performances identified in 2019, the last time a similar survey was conducted.
Between 2023-2024 to date, VocalEyes has delivered 236 live audio-described performances. These have included several performances at The Curve Theatre in Leicester, The Royal Court Theatre in London’s Sloane Square, and West End hits such as “The Lion King” and “Back to the Future.”
Claire Saddleton, VocalEyes CEO explains, “VocalEyes has come a long way since its early days, overcoming challenges like the pandemic and its impact on arts and culture. It’s heartening to see audiences returning to theatres and visitors heading back to museums and galleries. While financial challenges continue to affect venues, service providers, and audiences alike, these are exciting times for audio description (AD). New technology is driving better access and inclusion, and more companies than ever are offering AD services. We’re proud to promote so many shows through our regular What’s On guides. Personally, I’d love to see more venues and heritage sites invest in additional training to ensure that the visitor experience is as smooth and welcoming as possible.”
VocalEyes has a core team of five staff (including VI representatives) and a board of nine Trustees, of whom four are also VI. They have a pool of around 50 describers; trainers; consultants, and technicians. In October 2024, they hope to name some additional Trustees.
Eye Matter has worked closely with VocalEyes on some of these projects ensuring the importance of service user engagement. In our next episode we will be focusing on the use of podcasts used by Tim Calvert (from Calvert Creative Concepts) and his continued work with the Audio Description Association.