The DANCING team hosted a workshop on audio description that aimed to bring together legal perspectives with practice among those working in the arts. A keynote speech was delivered by Pádraig Naughton, executive director of Arts & Disability Ireland, followed by a roundtable discussion facilitate by Dr. Emma Smith from Maynooth University’s ALL Institute, with Donal J Fitzpatrick from the National Disability Authority as an invited discussant.

Building on the research work conducted for his LLM thesis, Pádraig Naughton skilfully connected legal theory with his professional work as executive director of Arts & Disability Ireland as well as with his lived experience of audio description in theatre. After Padraig’s keynote, Donal J Fitzpatrick as discussant and attendees from different academic backgrounds ranging from music and engineering to anthropology  discussed the complexities and challenges of audio description from various perspectives, highlighting the importance of an interdisciplinary and multi-pronged approach to audio description, and accessibility in the cultural realm more generally. Barriers and facilitators in the context of audio-described cultural products and services that were discussed in the workshop mirrored those emerging in the empirical research conducted under DANCING WP 1.

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