David Byrne to launch 15,000 square-foot immersive experience, ‘Theater of the Mind’
Today, David Byrne will launch his long-awaited 15,000 square-foot immersive experience, Theater of the Mind.
The show is a collaboration with technology investor Mala Gaonkar and aims to explore human perception. It is taking place in the Off-Centre space at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, specifically at its experimental Off-Center space, formerly a cannabis centre in the city’s Clayton neighbourhood.
Byrne has been plotting the immersive experience for years, but the pandemic delayed his plans. Back in 2019, the former Talking Heads detailed the show to Rolling Stone: “It will be in a warehouse, where it’s divided into a bunch of different rooms. A group of 16 audience members will go from room to room and experience these perceptual things.
“When they leave one room, another group goes in there. That way, you can get 400 people in from 6 p.m. to 10. You get the same number as if it were a theater show, but you get more in small groups”.
He also said why they chose Denver to host the experience and explained: “The Denver Center for the Performing Arts have done immersive things like this before — not quite like this — but they’ve cultivated an audience in Denver.”
Meanwhile, director Andy Scoville told local Denver 9: “I think a thing that’s going to really track for a lot of these audience members is the way that these different perceptual phenomena actually make up our perception of the world/ And then the experience will ask the question, is that reliable? How malleable is that? And what does that mean for us as people?”
Those fortunate to have tickets won’t be seeing Byrne perform. However, on September 12th, he is participating in a live conversation with neuroscientist and Radiolab co-host Latif Nasser at the Denver Center.
“The conversation will explore the intersections between art and science and the neuroscience research that inspired this groundbreaking production,” the venue said in a statement in May.
Theater of the Mind is running from now until December 18th. Watch the trailer below.
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