Traverse — Saye Theatre’s Latest Production, Presented in Adelaide

From March 2 to 4, 2023, Traverse, the latest production of Saye Theatre, was presented at the TGI company venue in Adelaide Town Hall, in cooperation with Mokhtas Theatre in the port city of Genaveh, Iran.

Traverse is a multimedia performance that brings together live performance, video, and remote participation. During the Adelaide performances, part of the work was transmitted live from Genaveh, allowing members of the Saye Theatre group who were physically present in Iran to participate in the performance from a distance.

The performance connects Iranian and Japanese legends and stories around themes of life and death. Rather than presenting these traditions separately, Traverse weaves their narratives together and uses the distance between the two cultures as part of the structure of the performance.

The physical distance between Adelaide and the port city of Genaveh became part of the performance itself, turning the geographical separation between the artists into a material element of the work. The performers in Adelaide and Genaveh shared the same performance through live video and multimedia technology, creating a stage that existed across two locations.

For Saye Theatre, Traverse continued the group’s practice of working across geographical and institutional boundaries, while developing new ways of bringing artists together when they cannot share the same physical stage.