Dir­ect­or Car­rie Thiel is seek­ing to “cre­ate con­nectiv­ity using mul­ti­me­dia, motion cap­ture and vir­tu­al real­ity tech­no­lo­gies in a theatre set­ting.” Work­ing with pro­fes­sion­al dan­cer Laura Jones, sound design­er Chris Winter and 3D180 VR film­maker Ed Dav­is, she’s brought togeth­er some­thing that’s quite spe­cial. 

The per­form­ance itself is short and is designed as a ‘proof of concept’. Com­bin­ing motion cap­ture, vir­tu­al real­ity, filmed and live per­form­ance it adds the ele­ment of an unre­hearsed per­former (wear­ing the VR head­set). The nar­rat­ive con­cerns Anna (Jones) who is in the stu­dio for the first time after the death of a long­time col­lab­or­at­or. She struggles to con­cen­trate until she feels some­thing (or someone) in the stu­dio with her. 

There are two ways to watch. You can choose to be an audi­ence mem­ber where you’ll watch the per­son in the VR head­set inter­act with the live per­former while the scene from the VR is pro­jec­ted onto a screen at the back of the room. You can choose to wear the VR head­set (slightly pri­ci­er tick­et) and con­trol the view on the screen as well as inter­act with the digit­al char­ac­ter and Anna. I appre­ci­ated being able to watch the story first as it gave me an idea of how I could inter­act with Jones when I was wear­ing the VR head­set. (I wish I’d sat on the side fur­therest from the door so I could see the live, pro­jec­ted, and tech­nic­al aspects all at the same time!)

This is a story about loss and Thiel has resources to help any audi­ence members/participants with grief should they react dur­ing the per­form­ance. Her and the team are very clear that any reac­tion is appro­pri­ate. 

One of the best VR exper­i­ences I’ve had. I’m think­ing more about the story exper­i­ence than I am the tech­no­logy.

  • Dance Me to the End on at BATS Theatre as part of 6 degrees fest­iv­al to 15 Feb­ru­ary 2020. Ses­sions at 5:30pm, 6:45pm, 8:00 pm and 9:15 pm. Par­ti­cip­ate onstage, watch from the audi­ence or book a private VR ses­sion.