Good night, sleep tight (remix)

ABSTRACT

Good Night, Sleep Tight is an interactive virtual reality performance created by theatre and digital arts company ZU-UK. It was previewed at Gerry’s Kitchen in July 2017. Combining VR and binaural technologies, participants are put to bed and transported to a dreamscape composed of childhood imagery and aerial cityscapes. This artistic position remixes the audience’s experience and the artistic processes of Good Night, Sleep Tight to proffer a critical engagement with the aesthetics of VR. Theories pertaining to VR and theatre are emerging but not yet fully established. The discourse between technologists and artists is key to understanding how VR is a new artistic medium requiring a language not solely redolent of gaming or theatre. The format of this article reflects ZU-UK’s contention that VR experiences are best designed as collaborations between artists and audiences who construct an imaginary world through interactive media. The seven scenes below concentrate on different aspects of the rehearsal process and the final performance from the perspectives of the ZU-UK directors, VR technologists, and participants. Interspersed throughout the article are fragments from the Good Night, Sleep Tight script and a description of the piece from the reader’s perspective, who acts as ZU-UK’s imaginary audience member.

KEYWORDS:

• Interactive
• participatory
• binaural
• childhood
• VR
• mixed reality

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Joseph Dunne is ZU-UK’s research associate. His research specialisms include performance archives and documentation, performative writing, audience participation, and immersive theatre. He teaches theatre and performance at several universities and is Artist in Residence at City, University of London, where he is researching interactive technologies and models of performance documentation from a Library and Information Science perspective. The DocPerform project Joseph runs with colleagues at City investigates how a performance can be considered as a document and the ways information can be experienced as a performance. He has published articles and book reviews in Performance Research, Stanislavski Studies and Drama Research and regularly presents papers at academic conferences in the UK and abroad. Joseph has undertaken practice research projects in the UK, Finland, Greenland and Brazil.

Persis Jadé Maravala is Artistic Director of ZU-UK, an award-winning non-for-profit independent company founded in 2001. She works as writer and director for all the company's work. Persis Jadé is ethnically Persian, born in Yemen yet raised in East London. In a world where mainstream narratives normalise hate and fear, and where contemporary loneliness is a new epidemic, Persis Jadé believes in the need for shared rituals, new narratives and experiences that empower those most vulnerable to have a voice and participate within a live, ever evolving, culture. She runs the MA Contemporary Performance course with ZU-UK at the University of Greenwich and has taught at numerous institutions in the UK and abroad. Persis Jadé's work is often interactive, political, intimate and sited in unusual locations as an invitation to people who might not ordinarily engage with the Arts. Her work has toured extensively and been commissioned by LIFT Festival, FACT Liverpool, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Summerhall Edinburgh, British Council and the Brazilian Ministry for Culture. Maravala is currently the joint curator of Rose Bruford College annual international symposium with Jorge Lopes Ramos.

Jorge Lopes Ramos is co-founder and Executive Director at ZU-UK. Lopes Ramos' research focuses predominantly on immersive, participatory and interactive performance practices. He worked as programme leader for MA Contemporary Performance Practices at University of East London between 2016 and 2019, and since 2020 runs the MA Contemporary Performance at the University of Greenwich. In 2019, Jorge Lopes Ramos was awarded the title of Fellow of Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama for outstanding contributions to the field. Over the past 15 years, Lopes Ramos' practiceas-research outputs have taken the form of performances and productions, digital work, public installations and exhibitions in venues, conferences and festivals in the UK and abroad. Lopes Ramos is currently the joint curator of Rose Bruford College symposium with Persis Jadé Maravala. His research has been published in Palgrave's Reframing Immersive Theatre: The Politics and Pragmatics of Participatory Performance, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training Journal and the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media.