Over 60 of the world’s top venues, including Brisbane’s QPAC, are showcased by the tech-giant’s Google Cultural Institute.

Ever wondered what it would be like to be on stage, in the spotlight, looking out into the auditorium as your fellow performers whizz about? Now you can, as digital-giants Google have applied the technology it pioneered with its Google Street View maps for an altogether more artistic purpose.

The new partnership offers a range of performing arts from some of the world’s greatest venues, including the Queensland Performing Arts Centre in Brisbane. Whether it’s a performance of Paris Opera Ballet artistic director Benjamin Millepied’s Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward, or British actor Alex Hassell’s epic portrayal of Henry V from Stratford-upon-Avon, Željko Lučić’s Otello from the New York Met, or The Light Princess at London’s National Theatre, the exhibition offers a 360 degree interactive video experience that will take the viewer to the heart of a performance from the comfort of their own homes.

Benjamin Millepied’s Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward

Launched on Tuesday, the Google Cultural Institute’s latest exhibition features a series of over 60 videos including dance, theatre, opera and orchestral performances. World class venues featured in the online exhibition include Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonic and Opera Garnier. Each performance, which the viewer can personally manipulate to view a full 360 degree panorama, is accompanied by articles about the performers and art works.

Roxanne Hopkins, Executive Director of Marketing at QPAC, hopes the initiative will become an important tool in connecting more people than ever before to the arts. “A recent report by the Australia Council for the Arts outlines the growing proportion of Australians are using the internet to access arts content,” Hopkins shares. “Working with digital leaders such as Google on arts content creation and sharing is a critical part of our digital strategy, and helps us deliver arts experiences to our audience far beyond the four walls of our theatres at QPAC.”

An image from the virtual tour of the new Philharmonie de Paris

Venues from over 20 countries have partnered with Google for this initial online exhibition, but more venues are expected to join the cache of arts videos on offer, and all the content is free to access. This is the latest world-first exhibition in a series of groundbreaking efforts by the Google Cultural Institute, which has already had a tremendous impact on the way digital culture lovers connect with visual art, digitising collections of more than 800 art museums and historical archives worldwide.

The full archive of videos is available to view now on the Google Cultural Institute website.