Using extended-reality to enhance live ballet performances

Project partners: Northern Ballet, Backstage Academy and the University of York

Northern Ballet utilised XR Stories funding to explore the role of extended-reality in ballet.

Click here to view the video with audio description.

Leeds-based Northern Ballet is one of the world’s leading narrative ballet companies. They are renowned for classical ballet performances of unexpected stories such as Dracula, Casanova and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. In this project, Northern Ballet collaborated with training academy, Backstage Academy, and academics from the University of York.

The collaboration explores how extended-reality can:

• affect a filmed ballet performance
• be incorporated into a tradition stage performance
• work with virtual environments to place ballet in a completely new audience experience.

The project team created new immersive experiences based on Northern Ballet’s repertoire of popular narrative ballet. The performances are aimed at location-based settings, from stately homes to schools to arenas. This work is enabling Northern Ballet to reach audiences outside the traditional theatre setting in ways that create unforgettable experiences and sustainable routes to market in the future.

This project was funded through the OpenXR funding call.

Categories: Arts, Performance