A pioneering project led by Northern Ballet in partnership with Leeds Hospitals Charity is bringing together meditative dance, music and Virtual Reality (VR) technology to see if this can help alleviate stress and isolation for young patients.
The pilot project, which involves key partners, including the University of Leeds and Leeds Beckett University, aims to explore how young people at Leeds Children’s Hospital can be positively impacted by using VR technology. Utilised by hospital Play Specialists, the experience will ‘transport’ patients out of the clinical setting into a sensory, 360-degree virtual environment to experience a dance piece inspired by and set in the natural world.
It is hoped that the project will gain an understanding of how young people react to the virtual reality experience. The aim is to help bed-bound patients, or those in hospital for long periods of time, feel entertained and more connected to the world outside.
The five-minute-long immersive experience is choregraphed by Northern Ballet’s George Liang, who has danced with the company since 2018, and performed by Cameron Pugh, a dancer at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. It was filmed over the summer at the Otley Chevin Forest Park in Leeds by filmmaker and project director Mark Wilkinson. The finished work is set to a score composed by the Leeds Conservatoire, which combines gentle music with elements of an outside soundscape.
The VR experience will be tested in a clinical setting this autumn, with groups of children and young people aged between 8 and 16, led by the Play Team at Leeds Children’s Hospital, funded by Leeds Hospitals Charity. The project partners have devised a short feedback form to capture insights and feedback from patients. An analysis of the feedback will be summarised in a report which will be made publicly available in spring 2027.
Northern Ballet Artistic Director, Federico Bonelli: “We know that dance can transport audiences to a different time and place, to experience stories and emotions that take them away from their everyday lives – but to be able to do this in a fully immersive way takes this to a whole new level. I hope the powerful combination of nature, beautiful movement from the dancer and the immersive soundscape will help children feel calmer and less isolated in hospital.
It’s so important that Northern Ballet finds innovative ways to use the opportunities presented by the digital world to make ballet even more accessible to new audiences. We will continue to complement our touring productions by exploring how we can bring dance to people who may not usually experience, or be able, to see ballet in a traditional theatre setting.”
The project has been developed with insight from the Leeds Young Research Owls – a group of young individuals dedicated to influencing all disciplines of child health research in Leeds – and academic input and expertise from Leeds Beckett University and The University of Leeds through the Child Health Outcomes Research at Leeds programme.
It aims to contribute to a growing body of evidence on the effectiveness of VR in improving the paediatric hospital experience*, lay the foundations for a larger scale research study and support knowledge sharing across the healthcare sector, locally and nationally.
Rebecca Baldaro-Booth, Director of Grants and Impact at Leeds Hospitals Charity: “We are delighted to be partnering with Northern Ballet to support this innovative project at Leeds Children’s Hospital which explores how creativity and technology has the potential to resonate with children and young people in hospital. Being in hospital can be an anxious and isolating time, particularly for patients who are undergoing treatment or spending long periods away from home and normal routines.
Through the power of dance, music, and virtual reality, we’re hopeful patients will respond positively to this pilot project and enjoy the opportunity to step outside the hospital environment for a few moments to experience something calming and uplifting.
At Leeds Hospitals Charity, we are committed to championing projects that can lay the foundations for research that will improve patient wellbeing and help build evidence for new approaches to care. We’re proud to support this project that seeks to better understand how children respond to innovative interventions like this. We hope the feedback will contribute valuable insights for hospitals and healthcare providers across the UK.”
The pilot project has been funded by the Linbury Trust and is also part of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and Leeds City Council’s Seasons of Culture 2026.
It also shines a light on Northern Ballet’s digital strand, which aims to bring ballet from stage to screen in all different formats so that as many people as possible can enjoy the positive impact of dance.
Photography by Colleen Mair. Images are of Cameron Pugh and George Liang.
