David Bassuk is an immersive narrative designer, theatre director, and educator whose practice advances new methodologies in immersive technologies, spatial narrative, transmedia worldbuilding, and audience agency.
As co-founder and Creative Director of White Horse Immersive in China, he has translated IP into participatory storyworlds for companies including Alibaba Animation Studios and Tencent’s Original Force Animation, and served as Narrative Designer for the Oriental Eden (China Eden Project) destination in Qingdao—developing toolkits for multi-path, location-based narrative.
His theme-park work includes Ocean Flower Island’s “Magical Mystery Tree,” integrating performance, gameplay loops, and AI-driven systems around ecology and planetary futures.
Current projects include Aurora, an AR-enabled immersive musical and interactive game experience developed with the Sheung Cheung Performing Arts Center in Hangzhou. Bassuk’s thought leadership centers on non-linear dramaturgy and spatial narrative; he convenes interdisciplinary teams to prototype structures that fuse gameplay and performance, interactive media, and multiverse strategies.
A Fulbright Scholar at FH Salzburg (2023–24), his research Immersive Storytelling Futures examines the convergence of theatre, game design, AI-assisted narrative, and media literacy. He continues to teach immersive narrative and game design at FH Salzburg and in the MA in Social and Environmental Design at IED in Turin, and collaborates with MIAT (Multiverse Institute for Arts and Technology) in Milan on spatial narrative and immersive design programs.
From 2020–24, he partnered with UNAMI in Iraq to teach ARG and role-play methods for civic participation and climate action. At Purchase College, SUNY, he pioneered curricula in immersive storyworlds and live interactive media, treating rehearsal as research.
