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Visit our other site www.mediaaccess.org.au for all the latest news, information and help on captioning issues in Australia. 

The International Scene


Audio Description in the Arts Internationally

The responsibility for access accommodations internationally is often focused on the venue itself, as opposed to a production company. Many venues have access accommodations as a requirement in their hiring agreements, where the hiring production company must adhere to the venue's conditions. This approach is driven by different nations' disability discrimination laws and is yet to be adopted in Australia. Below are some brief outlines of audio description access in the arts in the United Kingdom and United States.

United Kingdom

Audio description for theatre in the UK is mainly provided by Vocal Eyes, with some local volunteers covering other sites. Most of the performances are in London, with some in other venues across the country.

Vocal Eyes has started a collaborative United Kingdom Arts Council-funded project with Stagetext, the United Kingdom's premier theatre captioning provider. 'See A Voice' is a three-year program designed to expand access to theatres across the United Kingdom. Local theatres across England have been divided into four regional areas and work as a cluster. Theatre staff are trained in audio description and captioning, and share equipment to provide these services in-house. This approach will see the cost of captioning and audio description virtually halved for some theatres, proving a more sustainable method of access service delivery.

This is a trend that is emerging in Europe where access is treated as a single issue and the various organisations covering the different disabilities tend to collaborate. It is hoped that this approach will become more commonplace in Australia too.

A visit to a museum or gallery in the United Kingdom is now possible through the use of audio guides. These services can be in the form of audio picture description, optional orientation information of highlights from permanent displays, podcasts, downloadable tours or mobile phone tours. You can access these services in various museums and galleries including the Tate Britain, Victoria & Albert Museum, the Tower of London, Kensington Palace, Westminster Abbey and Hampton Court.

Audio description is also available to tour architecturally significant buildings.  The O2, Royal Albert Hall and 30 St Mary Axe (commonly known as The Gherkin) are among many buildings featured in these tours.  

United States

There are a number of audio description companies in the United States providing either the service themselves or training programs for theatre staff. These include Audio Description Solutions, who are a service provider and facilitator of training programs nationally, and the Audio Description Associates, operating training programs across the country.

America's national cultural centre in Washington DC, the John F Kennedy Center, is a leader in access provision through audio description. Other major performing arts centres that provide audio description are the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, the California Shakespeare Company, The Cleveland Playhouse in Ohio, and New York's Neil Simon Theatre. These are just a handful of venues across the USA where audio described theatre is performed.

Many museums and galleries in the United States also provide access using technology through audio described tours and self-guided pictorial descriptions. For example, the sixteen museums and National Zoo within the Smithsonian Institution provide all their publications in an audio format and produce a 'Touch and Hear' guide with audio directions to touchable exhibits. The Smithsonian is located in the Washington DC region.
 
New York's Museum of Modern Art offers MoMA Audio.  This is an audio program devoted to the Museum's collection and special exhibitions. Available at the Museum and online free of charge, MoMA Audio includes the following programs: Special Exhibitions, Modern Voices, Modern Kids, Visual Descriptions, MoMA Teen Audio, and Think Modern Audio Archive.
 
Access to musical events such as opera or musical theatre can come in the form of audio description during a performance, or prior to and at intervals of a performance. This latter service is sometimes referred to as audio introductions.