Leading immersive and digital performance innovators ZU-UK will be tucking audiences into bed with a hot chocolate and VR headset in a new performance that merges reality with digital, whilst in Theatre Royal Stratford East’s restaurant, Gerry’s Kitchen, binaural sound will present audiences with an intimate experience of a dinner date. Audience members become participants and will experience Goodnight, Sleep Tight one person at a time, whilst The Blind Dinner Date will be for three couples at a time
In Goodnight, Sleep Tight, ZU-UK tests the limits of 360º video by exploring the overlap between simultaneous live performance and digital experience. In the physical world, audience members are put to bed with a cup of hot chocolate and pyjamas; through VR headsets, they experience bedtime as an eight-year old. The sights they see through the eight-year-old’s eyes are mirrored in the real world, blurring their perception of both worlds as they see feel actors move around them until the realistic virtual space dissolves into a dream experience filmed using a drone flying over the immediate cityscape.
Part interactive performance, part dating agency, The Blind Dinner Date will invite genuine applications from individuals looking for love, or existing couples who simply want a very different dating experience. Theatre Royal Stratford East’s Gerry’s Kitchen restaurant will be transformed into a lush romantic setting, complete with disco floor and mirror ball, to explore the failure of verbal language. Taking place at three tables simultaneously, two participants per table are hosted by a waiter/facilitator/DJ and interactively mixed binaural audio with suggestions and comments on dating ‘rules’ and social norms. These span proper dinner table etiquette, social faux pas to avoid, as well as games pushing social expectations and ‘acceptable’ table talk topics.
ZU-UK is at Theatre Royal Stratford East 6th – 9th July 2017.
