British Academy Fellowship

Dancing into the Cultural Metaverse: Inclusivity and Accessibility

The Meta vision of a ‘social-media’ metaverse offered an inclusive vision of work, education, and community through real-time, immersive and interactive technologies. However, the current state of VR/AR/XR hardware and software provide real obstacles to inclusion and accessibility within virtual spaces. In addition, the metaverse vision of the tech giants, grounded in social media, data control, and consumerism suggested a somewhat dry simulation of a racially normative, heteronormative, and body-normative reality.

This corporate conceit has already faltered with many already declaring ‘the death of the metaverse’. However, it was also already being disrupted in interesting ways by bubble-up, independent and community phenomena involving the transcending and extension of bodies, time, and space through dance movement exploration. This project placed itself within this mode of technological and discursive disruption.

Taking learnings from our previous AHRC-funded artist-residency project, our focus in this project was to lower barriers to metaverse access in terms of both cost and usability. Inspired by the principles of intersectional, interdisciplinary, and disability-centred dance research, we aimed to develop, workshop and disseminate tools and practices for the benefit of all potential users of immersive media.

The kinds of sustainable and inclusive design practices that this incorporated were;

live mocap data-streaming tools for remote and accessible participation,
a customisable avatar system for adaptive modes of non-normative embodiment,
immersive VR platforms for inclusive embodied agency in virtual spaces.

Through his unique relationship with partner organisation Alexander Whitley Dance Company Daniel Strutt was able to explore presence, embodiment and interaction on the innovative, experimental, cutting-edge of this mode of expression. By aligning our research goals with Alexander Whitley Dance Company’s own innovation goals, namely the development of a consumer-oriented product called the Digital Dance Studio, we were able to extensively test our innovations with diverse user groups through a series of workshops (with the assistance of lived experience facilitators)

These involved: