Press Release
Wayne McGregor: On The Other Earth co-produced by HKBU, Hong Kong Ballet and Studio Wayne McGregor, London, comes home and makes Asia premiere at Tai Kwun eMBody—everybody in motion presented in tandem for public to interact with virtual dancers
Wednesday, 24 June 2026
Co-produced by Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), Hong Kong Ballet (HKB) and Studio Wayne McGregor, London, the immersive installation Wayne McGregor: On The Other Earth comes home and makes its highly anticipated Asian debut at Tai Kwun from 25 June to 2 August 2026 following critical acclaim in Venice and London. This groundbreaking virtual experience – a spectacular marriage of dance and technology – signals a bold new future for performance, choreography and immersive media.
Furthermore, HKBU and Tai Kwun will also present eMBody—everybody in motion, a free interactive experience that invites visitors into a 360-degree immersive 3D cinema (nVis). The public can partner with virtual dancers in a responsive world where movement, sound, and image converge around them.
The world’s first 3D 360-degree post-cinematic choreographic installation, Wayne McGregor: On The Other Earth, reconceptualises dance beyond stage and screen. Co-commissioned by La Biennale di Venezia, Danza, Somerset House in London and Tai Kwun, the work premiered at the 19th International Festival of Contemporary Dance in July 2025. It was subsequently selected for Venice Immersive ("the Best of"), the Extended Reality (XR) section of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival in Aug 2025, before its UK premiere at Stone Nest in London’s West End in Oct 2025. On The Other Earth was recently recognised as Best Dance Film at the 2025 National Dance Awards in the UK.
Conceived as a landmark art-tech endeavour, Wayne McGregor: On The Other Earth is supported by the Innovation and Technology Commission of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. This programme is made possible by continued funding from The Hong Kong Jockey Club through its Charities Trust as one of Tai Kwun’s arts and heritage programmes, and is supported by Shaw Studios.
Created and directed by Sir Wayne McGregor, one of the world’s leading choreographers, in collaboration with international award-winning artists Ravi Deepres, Theresa Baumgartner, Invisible Mountain, and Professor Jeffrey Shaw, Chair Professor of the Academy of Visual Arts and Director of the Visualization Research Centre at HKBU, the 57-minute virtual performance dissolves boundaries between audience, dancer and digital space. Each encounter unfolds differently, shaped by artificial intelligence (AI) and spatialised sound.
Professor Alex Wai, President and Vice-Chancellor of HKBU remarked, "We are delighted to see our homegrown innovations return to Hong Kong to engage with local audiences, following their successful presentation on the global stage made possible by the collaboration of local and international talents.
HKBU is committed to transforming innovation into flagship art tech projects that advance the development and exchange of arts and culture between China and the world. By establishing an international platform for East-meets-West cultural exchange, we aim to further strengthen Hong Kong's position as a vibrant hub for arts and creative excellence, while contributing to the continued growth of its cultural and creative industries."
Wayne McGregor: On The Other Earth is set within Professor Jeffrey Shaw, and Professor Sarah Kenderdine, Visiting Professor of the Department of Computer Science at HKBU’s radically immersive nVis environment – a 360-degree 3D LED screen developed at the HKBU Visualization Research Centre. As the world’s first panoramic visualisation system equipped with a 26-million-pixel stereoscopic display, nVis creates a boundless visual field that recedes into infinite depth, enhanced by a 29.4-channel surround sound system. The result is a fully immersive experience, placing audiences inside a live and evolving work.
Professor Jeffrey Shaw said: “nVis is developed as part of Future Cinema Systems: Next Generation Art Technology, funded by the Innovation and Technology Fund in Hong Kong and undertaken in collaboration with HKBU, City University of Hong Kong and the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne. Wayne McGregor: On The Other Earth is a breakthrough in creating a new space of encounter made possible by the nVis, a technology that delivers a panoramic, stereoscopic, high-resolution projection environment, enabling viewers to experience dance in an entirely new way. Furthermore, with eMBody—everybody in motion, we further introduce interactivity, allowing visitors to become choreographic agents who engage directly with the dancers, dissolving the boundary between stage and spectator.”
Responding to Company Wayne McGregor: Deepstaria, Wayne McGregor’s live stage work from 2024, inspired by the regenerative jellyfish, Wayne McGregor: On The Other Earth invites audiences to embark on a further act of rebirth, reimagining humanity’s enduring connection to the universe that contains us. Performed by Company Wayne McGregor and HKB, the dancers become hyperreal figures, conjuring a richly sensory, interactive choreographic and sonic experience that reflects on our relationship with the void and with mortality itself. Playing out over 13 chapters, the choreography explores distinct physical languages of contemporary dance – from rapid, high velocity movement and intricately extended bodies to sequences focused solely on hand gestures, as well as intense group passages driven by pulling, lifts and physical force.
Bending the rules of time and space, the work is staged against iconic landscapes across Hong Kong, including Quarry Bay’s Monster Building and a dramatic descent onto the helipad rooftop of The Peninsula Hong Kong. It travels beyond the city to London’s Roundhouse and Sadler’s Wells, and even ventures behind the scenes in a striking rehearsal-studio sequence, where dancers hang upside down from the ceiling, spider-like, or have their feet suspended in the air. Accompanied by Foley sound effects, these moments overturn sensory expectations. The work ultimately retreats from spectacle, concluding with a poignant solo dance that brings the experience to an introspective close.
Timothy Calnin, Director of Tai Kwun Arts, said: “We are excited to be a co-commissioner of this ground-breaking new creation and immensely proud to be the presenter of its first appearance in Asia. Wayne McGregor: On The Other Earth grew from typically Hong Kong ingredients: the fearless pursuit of technological innovation and a home-grown ballet company in peak form to realise the choreographic concept from one of the greatest dance makers of our time – with Hong Kong’s spectacular harbour providing the dramatic scenery of key moments. This landmark project reflects Tai Kwun’s goal to connect global creative artists with Hong Kong innovators and elevates Hong Kong to the forefront of art, dance and tech-enabled creativity, offering a rare convergence of visceral choreography, next-generation cinema technology and an intimacy with the performers which can rarely be experienced in the theatre.”
Septime Webre, Artistic Director of HKB, said: “I am very excited for Tai Kwun to present the Asia premiere of On The Other Earth in Hong Kong following its highly acclaimed tours in Venice and London. We believe that Hong Kong audiences will be captivated by this breathtaking installation from visionaries Wayne McGregor and Jeffrey Shaw, which weaves ballet, contemporary dance and cutting-edge technology together. It’s thrilling that three international partners – HKB, Studio Wayne McGregor and HKBU – have joined forces on this immersive project that elevates ballet to new heights. Viewers will discover the unique beauty of the city from an entirely new perspective. HKB has always strived to tell Hong Kong’s unique story globally through ballet, constantly pushing creative boundaries and using dance to connect with the world.”
Click here for more details of Wayne McGregor: On The Other Earth.
Interactive Experience: eMBody—everybody in motion
Additionally, in the nVis screen, HKBU and Tai Kwun present eMBody—everybody in motion. Based on motion capture recordings from the dancers of Company Wayne McGregor, the installation transforms audiences from passive observers into active participants within a mixed-reality performance space. Using real-time body tracking and generative media, eMBody creates evolving choreographies between human bodies, data and machine intelligence. Participants influence projected dancers, environmental visuals and spatial sound through gesture and collective movement, producing a shared sensorial experience that changes with every interaction. The work explores how immersive environments and embodied interaction reshape relationships between performers, audiences and public space.
This ground-breaking experience welcomes up to 16 participants within the nVis system at once – eight interactors and eight spectators. Across eight sensorial worlds derived from dancers’ motion-capture data, interactors use hand-held interfaces to influence the movements and behaviours of virtual dancers within an emergent sonic landscape. Combining performance, human-computer interaction and advanced computer graphics, eMBody—everybody in motion is a foundational form for Future Cinema Systems.
Click here for more details of eMBody—everybody in motion.
