Doris Duke Theatre
Extended Reality Salon

Extended Reality Salon

Saturday, July 12, 2025 from 9:30am-7:40pm and
Sunday, July 13, 2025 from 11am-2pm | Forest Studio, Doris Duke Theatre

On Saturday and Sunday of the Duke Opening Week Celebration, an Extended Reality Salon will run in the Forest Studio, free and open to the public. This installation is not ticketed, and is available to the public as a walk-up experience. The Salon will feature two experiences:

Aoi + Esteban: 0AR (zero AR)

Saturday Only

Aoi + Esteban will present the U.S. premiere of 0AR (zero AR), a collection of short dance works in augmented reality (AR) suitable for all ages, presented on iPads provided to each audience member. Commissioned by Sadler’s Wells in London and co-produced by Biennale de la Danse de Lyon in 2018, 0AR is based on the 2005 groundbreaking production zero degrees, a collaboration between Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Akram Khan, and Nitin Sawney, with sculptor Antony Gormley.

Kinetic Light: territory

Saturday and Sunday

territory is an immersive virtual reality experience centered in a futuristic post-apocalyptic disabled world, created by Double Eye Studios and internationally-recognized disability arts ensemble Kinetic Light.

Utopic and dystopic all at once, territory is a disability-centered, accessible VR experience that surrounds the user in movement, light, vibration, and sound. territory is directed by Kiira Benz and Alice Sheppard; featured performers are Jerron Herman, Laurel Lawson, and Alice Sheppard, with scenography by Michael Maag, sound design/spatial mix by Q Department, sound technology by Mach1, and access design by Lawson and Sheppard.

Enacted in a post-apocalyptic landscape created by human insistence on barriers and borders, territory immerses the witness in a disability-centered, fantastical universe that offers encounters with cosmic figures, dark forces, partnership, and new worlds. territory—the first aesthetically accessible VR headset experience of its kind—explores how the technology of barbed wire (dis)connects humans (from)/to their environment and each other. The project is a reimagining of Kinetic Light’s stage production Wired, a potent aerial and contemporary dance experience that tells race, gender, and disability stories of barbed wire in the United States.

territory is an equitably accessible VR experience which features narrative haptics in parallel with music and sound design. Access is central and generative in all Kinetic Light projects and practices. For territory, the team has integrated artistically equitable access practices into VR development and created full-reality immersive technologies, including spatial and multitrack audio description, haptics, and creative captioning.

Header Image: A golden sun: two figures fly through the air, bodies horizontal, hands clasped, wheelchair wheels facing out. They are encircled by interwoven barbed wire. Still from territory, courtesy of Double Eye Studios/Kinetic Light.