IWAMD
Imbas — Singing, Wind, Dance and Water
© Photo credits: Christian Sivertsen
Use-case overview
Mixed reality for heritage
IWAMD’s XTREME production takes audiences on an immersive journey through two interwoven Irish mythological traditions — the story of Sionann, goddess of the River Shannon, and the Portna Púcaí, the fairy song carried on the west coast wind. Wearing an Apple Vision Pro headset, each visitor is guided through a merged physical and digital world, drawn through layers of music, poetry, and dance toward a single ancient idea: that the world is full of wisdom, if you slow down enough to find it.
The Irish World Academy mixed reality production was enabled through the University of Limerick’s XTREME Living Lab, led by Associate Professor Martin Cunneen, in partnership with the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance and Artistic Director Helen Phelan.
The Living Lab provided the full production investment — covering costs, artist payments, institutional resources, travel and operational support, local planning, and the research environment through which the production was realised within XTREME.
Key information
Title:
Imbas — Singing, Wind, Dance and Water
Artists:
Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh (signer and flute)
Dónal O’Connor (fiddle)
Sarah Fennell (dance)
Institutional/production host:
University of Limerick / XTREME Living Lab
Artistic partner:
Irish World Academy of Music and Dance
Production type:
Mixed reality experience
Date:
June 2025, updates: June 2026
Technology:
Apple Vision Pro (XR)
Status:
Research prototype
Orginal production
XTREME Living Lab Irish Traditional Music and Dance Production
The IWAMD production features exceptional performers drawn from the Irish World Academy’s world-class roster of artists in Irish traditional music and dance:
- Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh – signer and flute
- Dónal O’Connor – viola
- Sarah Fennell – dance
Martin Cunneen served as XTREME Living Lab Principal Investigator and Living Lab Lead, University of Limerick, overseeing production investment, artist enablement, institutional coordination, partnership development, and the production’s research framing.
Helen Phelan, as Artistic Director, led the production’s concept, poetry, and cultural direction, and was central to the partnership with the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance.
The University of Limerick / XTREME Living Lab acted as institutional and production host, providing the major investment, artist and production enablement, and interdisciplinary research environment behind the work. The Irish World Academy of Music and Dance served as artistic production partner, contributing the performance, musical, and cultural research context for the piece.
Photo credits: Christian Sivertsen
The mythology — Imbas, Sionann & the Portna Púcaí
At the heart of this production is a word: Imbas — an Old Irish term for a wisdom not found in books, but discovered through searching, in the natural world and the space of imagination.
The production weaves together two Irish traditions. The first is the myth of Sionann, goddess of the River Shannon, who went in search of Imbas at a sacred well — her story embedded in the landscape surrounding the Irish World Academy itself. The second is the Portna Púcaí, the fairy song on the wind, rooted in the oral folklore of Ireland’s west coast.
Connecting them is the salmon — in Irish mythology a creature of wisdom, and one of the few that moves freely between river and ocean, between the written and the oral, between the two worlds the production inhabits.
Myth works because it operates at multiple levels at once — deeply rooted in a particular place, yet open enough to resonate far beyond it. Audiences who know these stories encounter them one way; those who don’t bring their own imagination to fill the space.
XTREME Data capture with IWAMD and ICO artists
Proces
From first alignment to final experience — a structured, iterative creative journey.
Developing the concept
The project started with an initial phase of aligning expectations and framing the production. As part of that process, the full XTREME consortium gathered in Limerick in July 2024 — hosted by the Irish World Academy and the University of Limerick — bringing together the wider project team for the first time in Ireland and establishing the creative and institutional relationship with the Limerick partners.
From there, a series of conversations between Helen Phelan and the XTREME creative team, led by Martin Cunneen at the University of Limerick and Ane Skak, creative producer of the production, began to shape the artistic concept. The initial idea centred on a bard — a traditional Irish storytelling and musical figure — but evolved toward something more mythological: a figure unconstrained by historical time, gender, or social class. Drawing on Irish folklore and mythology rather than a fixed historical role gave the work creative freedom to imagine and build the character in any direction. The River Shannon, the goddess Sionann, the Portna Púcaí, and the salmon of wisdom all grew from that foundation.
Read more: XTREME Project Consortium Meeting: Limerick, July 2–4, 2024
Data Capture – November 2024
The data capture for the IWAMD production took place over two days at the University of Nottingham’s Virtual and Immersive Production Studio in November 2024. The sessions focused on capturing music and dance performances by Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Dónal O’Connor, and Sarah Fennell using a sophisticated combination of spatial sound and visual recording technologies.
Visual Capture Techniques
- Volumetric Capture – DepthKit with 8 RGBD sensors for 3D representations
- Spatial Video Recording – wide-field visual perspectives for immersive environments
- Body Motion Capture – tracking intricate movements to animate performers
- Facial Performance Capture – recording subtle facial expressions for realism
- Gaussian Capture – advanced spatial rendering for enhanced visuals
Spatial Sound Recording
- 4 cardioid microphones around the performers
- 8 omnidirectional microphones
- 2 ambisonic microphones
- Binaural dummy head recording
These recording techniques, combined with room acoustic measurements, will enable ambience sound capture, room acoustic estimation, sound visualisation, and sound localisation — all to be reproduced within the 4DSOUND system for immersive experiences.
Read more: XTREME Milestone: Data-capturing event at the University of Nottingham
Post-production and refinement phase
Following the November 2024 data capture, the team moved into post-production — integrating the spatial sound recordings, volumetric video, and motion capture data into a coherent XR environment.
Current status: user testing in XTREME Living Lab in Limerick
XTREME Research areas
Audience audience experience in physical reality and in social XR (AALTO University)
3D Reconstruction of dynamically moving people, real-time motion capture of a person in a mobile environment, fine grain human pose estimation (Leibniz University Hannover)
3D Reconstruction of dynamic scenes/people (IT University of Copenhagen, Aalto University)
Scene understanding and 3D Audio–Visual reconstruction of the scene (University of Twente)
Sound reconstruction and visualization, music content understanding, human computer interaction and experience design (IT University of Copenhagen)
Human computer-interaction for social experience and artistic research (University of Nottingham, IT University of Copenhagen)
Research on the potential social opportunities of mixed reality for music therapy and social facing applications such as community music (XTREME Living Lab at University of Limerick)
Post-capture AI monoscopy-stereospcopy video conversion (University of Nottingham)
Credits
Irish World Academy of Music and Dance
Concept direction: Helen Phelan, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Dónal O’Connor, Martin Cunneen
Helen Phelan: Poetry
Artists:
Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh: Singer & Flute
Dónal O’Connor: Fiddle
Sarah Fennell: Dancer
University of Limerick
Martin Cunneen: ULIM Team leader
Mixed Reality Experience
Ane Skak: Creative Direction (Immersive Stories)
Christian Sivertsen: Technical Coordinator & Creative Technologist (IT University of Copenhagen)
Paul Tennent: Technical Coordinator & Creative Technologist (University of Nottingham)
Helen Phelan: Poetry and concept direction (Irish World Academy of Music and Dance Team)
Emma Pi Larsen: CG Artist (KHORA)
Maria Høeberg Holmberg: KHORA’s Project manger
Simon Max Bloch Lajboschitz: KHORA’s Production lead
Paul Tennent: Scene rebuild, VR Programming, Stereoscopic reproduction (University of Nottingham)
Yannis Parcharidis, Sakis Rogas, Kostas Iliadis: System Architecture & Content Design (BOLT Virtual)
Bodo Rosenhahn, Tom Wehrbein, Yi Yang, Hendrik Hachmann: Human Reconstruction & Virtual Presence (Leibniz University Hannover)
Thore Ipsen, Mathias Bastholm: Motion Capture (Marionette)
Data Capture
Ane Skak: Creative direction of the capture (Immersive Stories)
Laurence Cliffe: on-site coordination (University of Nottingham)
Richard Ramchurn: video capture (University of Nottingham)
Caroline Gaudeoso: Ambisonic microphone capture (IT University of Copenhagen)
Harshit: GoPro video capture (IT University of Copenhagen)
Christian Sivertsen: Script supervision, production documentation (IT University of Copenhagen)
Emily Trappen: Volumetric Video Capture (University of Nottingham)
Glenn McGarry: Audio Capture (University of Nottingham)
Pat Brundell: Captured data management (University of Nottingham)
Adrian Hazzard: Process observation and interviews (University of Nottingham)
Hendrik Hachmann: Video capture (Leibniz University Hannover)
Sami S. Brandt: Supervision and coordination of data capture processes (IT University of Copenhagen)
XTREME Project
Paul Tennent: Integration Work Package Leader (University of Nottingham)
Justyna Starostka: Project & Communication Manager (IT University of Copenhagen)
Sami S. Brandt: Project Coordinator (IT University of Copenhagen)
