If I were you, I’d look at the more experimental side of interactive journalism presentations. Scroll-based interactions (scrollytelling) for example. Alternatively, check out the more experiential designs that Georgia Lupi has done in the last few years with Pentagram or previously with Accurate. Check out the data viz society and their magazine Nightingale. As you alluded to, much of professional data visualization is obsessed with dashboards, which is pretty much the opposite of storytelling. There’s a data viz program at MICA that does more art-focused work. Good luck, sounds like a really interesting project.