From the boundless mind of composer and transdisciplinary artist Nona Hendryx, these two interactive experiences will tease the senses and open your world to the creative horizons unlocked by new technologies.

From her early years as a founding member of Labelle, Hendryx has been stretching the limits of musical genre, audience engagement and Black thought. Now, following a premiere at Lincoln Center, she and her marvelous team of creative and technical collaborators bring us two paired experiences that transport us into the Nonaverse. 

Hendryx is the 2026 Roth Visiting Scholar.

Dream Machine 1: VR (25 min) 
Slide on your virtual reality headsets and enter The Crown—an animated concert performed by Cyboracle, Nona Hendryx's digital avatar. And through live video technology, Hendryx herself performs in a wild real-time fusion of live performance and virtual embodiment.

Dream Machine 2: AI (10 min)
Step into a booth and join a creative dialogue with Cyboracle Prime, an AI-powered incarnation, rooted in the African musical tradition of call and response. By exchanging prompts and responses, Cyboracle Prime generates an original, bespoke song just for you with lyrics and melody born from your individual input.

The technical and creative team includes Eyejack.io's Sutu Campbell (creative/tech direction), Lukasz Karluk and Liam (VR lead), with motion capture by Juan Carlos Leon and Wwise audio integration by Mike Li. Dartmouth's DREAM Studio and the Hopkins Center team contributed significantly to realizing the Crown performances for this installation.

Cyboracle in the Nonaverse represents a landmark convergence of Black artistic imagination, cutting-edge immersive technology and the living legacy of one of music's most visionary voices.

photo by Sekou Luke

About the Artist About the Artist

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As the 2026 Dartmouth Roth Visiting Scholar, the multihyphenate rockstar is collaborating with Dartmouth faculty and breaking new ground in music, Afrofuturism and AI.

Nona Hendryx doesn't follow music's timeline—she rewrites it. A founding member of Labelle, inducted into the R&B Hall of Fame in 1999, she co-created three Gold Albums and the worldwide Platinum phenomenon Lady Marmalade. Her solo catalog spans nine studio albums, a Grammy nomination and collaborations with Prince, Peter Gabriel, George Clinton, Talking Heads and Keith Richards—alongside film work, including the Oscar-nominated Precious and compositions for Alvin Ailey's American Dance Theater.

A self-taught technology pioneer since the 1980s, she has experimented with a plethora of new and old electronic instruments and technology. In 2024, that led to creating and producing The Dream Machine Experience—a world-premiere mixed reality installation at Lincoln Center fusing AR, VR and AI through an Afrofuturist lens, featuring George Clinton, Laurie Anderson, Mickalene Thomas, Skin and Vernon Reid. From Lady Marmalade to the Nonaverse—Nona Hendryx has never stopped asking what music can become.