Abstract

This paper examines the intersections between immersive theatre and virtual reality (VR) performance, focusing 
on how both practices reconfigure embodiment, presence, and dramaturgy in contemporary performance cultures. 
It argues that immersive and VR-based works challenge traditional theatrical paradigms by dissolving the 
proscenium boundary and repositioning the spectator as an embodied participant within the performance 
environment. Through sensory engagement, spatial mobility, and interactive agency, audiences experience 
performance as a lived, multisensory encounter rather than a distanced representation. The study further explores 
how presence is constructed across physical and virtual domains, highlighting VR’s capacity to generate mediated 
forms of embodiment while maintaining perceptual immersion. It also analyses the shift from linear dramaturgy to 
nonlinear, spatialized, and participatory narrative structures, where meaning emerges through audience 
movement, choice, and interaction. Drawing on qualitative, quantitative, and hybrid methodologies, the paper 
demonstrates how immersive theatre and VR performance converge in their redefinition of audience-performer 
relations and their expansion of dramaturgical practice. Ultimately, it positions these forms as critical sites for 
rethinking performance in an era of technological mediation and experiential aesthetics.