Playing with Fire: An Immersive Odyssey with Yuja Wang is a mixed-reality/VR installation that reimagines the classical piano recital. Visitors wear VIVE Focus Vision headsets in a 45-minute session built around a Steinway & Sons Spirio grand piano that physically replays a recording of pianist Yuja Wang's performance while a volumetric-captured avatar of Wang appears to play it live (the experience does not feature Wang in person). The experience shifts between mixed reality (the physical piano and gallery) and virtual reality (nine animated visual worlds built around nine pieces from a repertoire Wang curated herself, spanning Bach, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky and Prokofiev) depending on the visitor's position and phase of the piece. Spatial audio, Murano-glass light fixtures replicated in the virtual scene, and fragments of poetry accompany the piano. It is a multi-user, location-based experience: audiences move freely around the piano and each other (rendered as stylised avatars) rather than following a fixed seat or path.
The UK presentation opened for previews on 9 September 2026 at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall, London, and is booked to run there until 3 January 2027. It is the fourth stop of an international tour: the work premiered 14 November 2025 at Musee de la musique - Philharmonie de Paris, then travelled to the Festival de Cannes Immersive Competition (May 2026) and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (June-July 2026); it is next booked at Taipei's National Theater & Concert Hall (10-24 October 2026) and New York's Lincoln Center (30 January-21 February 2027).
Playing with Fire is written and directed by Pierre-Alain Giraud and produced by VIVE Arts - HTC's global arts-and-technology initiative - and Atlas V, in collaboration with London-based production partner Lightroom. The Steinway Spirio piano was supplied by Steinway & Sons. An independent review of the London previews described the show as visually bold but occasionally nausea-inducing at 45 minutes, and noted this was the installation's fourth touring outing.
