Are you ready to play the game?
This project aims to understand and incorporate the mechanical and narrative features found within the award-winning, post-apocalyptic video game The Last of Us with a live dance performance that allows audiences to take an active role in their experience. The research has been divided into two complimenting sections, one focusing on the theoretical concepts of video game development and how it has already been employed within the dance industry. The other investigating how this academic research has impacted the practical construction and performance of a new interactive and immersive dance piece that uses the COVID-19 pandemic as its world changing incident, producing a ‘what if’ scenario that recognises how close we could have come to the end of the world. Through self-evaluation and reflection to the performance of this work, this project also aims to comment on future possibilities of video game features on dance work, and how the expanding use of immersive and interactive methods of choreography could be paving the way for innovative dance performance.