‘Two years ago it was impossible’: how tech turns dance into a multisensory fantasy

From the Barbican in London to shopping centres around the country, audiences can become part of sophisticated new XR dance spectaculars - diving into Lewis Carroll's imagination or an extravagant ballroom

I'm in an abandoned-looking house, where a woman appears like a dancing apparition. Then I'm going down a rabbit hole into a tea party in a bright yellow field. I'm conducting avatars moving to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring; taking part in a dance class where the teacher is a hologram; arriving at a grand Parisian party dressed in Chanel.

These are my recent forays into the world of extended reality (XR) in dance. It is technology that we are told is leading us towards a new metaverse, but in practice can often seem more like watching bad graphics in very uncomfortable headgear and wondering what the point is. Nevertheless, a number of choreographers are exploring what XR could bring to dance, whether in virtual reality (VR), where you are completely immersed in a different world via a large headset; or augmented reality (AR), where you wear glasses that add images into the space around you.