Binaural Dinner Date & Within Touching Distance – ZU-UK / Stephen Lawrence Gallery, London

A unique double bill by ZU-UK will change your perceptions and subvert your expectations. Or experience Binaural Dinner Date and Within Touching Distance as separate experiences at the intersection of technology, performance and participation.

ZU-UK at the University of Greenwich

What first attracted me to see Within Touching Distance by ZU-UK was its use of virtual reality. Long-time blog readers know I love a bit of VR (in theatre, opera, art and more) – I enjoy seeing new applications of this technology in participatory performance. So when this project by ZU-UK came paired with another, Binaural Dinner Date, I was in. Although binaural merely means sound in 3D, recorded with two microphones, it is indelibly linked in my mind with Blindness, the first performance I attended post-lockdown in 2020, which also made great use of binaural sound.

So who are the company incorporating all this technology into their work? Well, ZU-UK describe themselves as “leaders in participatory theatre and performance art.” Their projects are at the same time radical and respectful of audiences, gently leading them to rethink the world around them through technology, touch, humour and a firm attention to detail.

I saw both Binaural Dinner Date and Within Touching Distance as a double bill. This doesn’t mean you have to: they are on for another couple of weeks and you can book for one or both, in any order. Following my experience, however, I would suggest booking in the same sequence I did. I found Binaural Dinner Date encouraged openness to genuine human interaction, which meant I got more from Within Touching Distance than I might have done otherwise.

Binaural Dinner Date

The setting: the Stockwell Street Café at the University of Greenwich. People arrive to be greeted by a matchmaker. One by one we are led to our seats, and meet our date for the evening (it’s also possible to come as a pair and experience the date together). I have to be careful now how much I give away because much of Binaural Dinner Date is best as a surprise, but let me attempt to outline it for you.

Over a bit more than an hour, Binaural Dinner Date delivers a series of prompts through binaural headphones, encouraging you to get to know the person opposite you. The tension between encouraging intimacy and isolating you with technology is interesting, as is the way I found myself switching between a knowing laugh or smile at the artificiality of the set up, versus really allowing myself to be in the moment. Over the course of the experience the genuine connection tends to win out: Binaural Dinner Date subverts and plays on the norms of dating to encourage you to really see other people: your date, the waiter, the people on the street outside.

If this sounds like it may push you outside your comfort zone you’re probably right, but that’s ok. I was outside my comfort zone too, but in a way that was at the same time enjoyable. Ultimately I’m not sure there’s enough time to find your one true love here, but it’s fun and may encourage you to look at the world a little differently.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 4/5

Binaural Dinner Date on until 17 December (Saturday and Sunday only), more info and tickets here.

Within Touching Distance

Wishing my date farewell, I moved on to Within Touching Distance. This is a virtual reality experience with a difference. In basically all VR experiences I’ve had to date, the missing sense is touch. In fact, everything is carefully crafted to keep you in your own bubble, away from other audience members, walls and other boundaries.

The difference with Within Touching Distance is clear from the outset, as a performer gently takes your hand and brings you into a space set up with several beds. Again I won’t give too much away but from here you get ready for a bedtime ritual, get your VR headset and headphones on, and embark on the experience. Within Touching Distance is an incredible work. It takes you from childhood to old age, through your conscious and subconscious minds. You will reflect on your own mortality, and the importance of human touch. It’s a lot to process in 35 minutes: I’m sure there are those who take up the offer of sitting in the liminal space of the waiting room before venturing back out, or of talking through what they’ve experienced.

The word that springs to mind most strongly in connection with this performance is gentle. Within Touching Distance creates a safe space to confront these big concepts through memory, imagination, textures, smell and touch. Having opened myself to the possibility of human connection through Binaural Dinner Date, I found the experience of Within Touching Distance all the richer. It’s universal yet profoundly personal, vast yet comfortingly safe. Really quite remarkable.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 5/5

Within Touching Distance on until 17 December (Wednesday to Sunday), more info and tickets here.