Current

en route

en route is a pedestrian-based mobile work – a love song to your city, in which the private and the public, imaginal and concrete, intersect and overlap.

Using audio, mobile phone communication, urban streetscapes, walking, passers-by, and cafes, en route invites participants on a journey, inward and outward, through the thoroughfares and back-alleys of both the city and what they make of it. Directions, instructions and audio – snatches of narrative, musings, sound, song, dialogue, philosophy – intertwine with the wanderings, observations and (found) experiences of the participant, opening up a field for multiple ways of seeing the city, themselves, and others. The spontaneous choreography of passers-by, streets, alleys, buildings, detritus, becomes the site onto which the participant projects their own narratives and meanings.

Part traveller, witness, voyeur, the participants are able to view a world in the process of making itself – en route – emerging, dissolving, as perceptions, insights, senses, make and remake the city they inhabit.

See the city like the first time.

en route is specially created for each town or city it inhabits and has been created for 11 cities across the world.



Reviews

Auckland 2013

I’ve lived most of my life in Auckland, loving and hating it as anyone is wont to in his or her hometown. Now, via En Route, I’ve seen my own city through a new, unique lens. What ensues is an originally constructed four-dimensional geographical collage… an immersive artistic journey. Each track comprises original Auckland-based music (and) philosophical commentary and discussion on the existential nature of sight and place, intrinsically related to where you are and what you’re doing or observing at the time. Auckland is the tenth city that the company have infiltrated with their uniquely immersive urban art-trail.

Nik Smythe, theatreview

Seoul 2012

Your journey is a series of unexpected moments. You wander in the alleys of old cozy ambience, only suddenly to get distracted or run through the market. …you are faced with a cityscape that has past and present, familiarity and strangeness, love and hate mixed together. Then something starts to touch you. It’s the realization that ‘seeing’ is not a passive following of something you’re given but an active building of relationships with the subjects. By making landscapes that had been regarded as familiar infinitely strange, it makes us fully experience that ‘seeing’ is not ‘possessing’ but ‘creating relations’ and ‘letting it drift away’.
★★★★

Dong-A Ilbo

London 2012

Never previously having much joy with this kind of technology driven drama, it is a relief that the Australia-based company is so accomplished that the participant can just concentrate on the content. Which is London. As musicians and voices from the capital weave a beguiling soundscape in my ears – sometimes wittily commenting on the view, occasionally striking a poetic chord – it is liberating to be led around places I would never normally visit, throwing the capital into a whole new light as judged from the perspective of the intrepid explorer rather than my default position of harassed commuter.

Jonathan Lovett, The Stage

Participants get to explore both the physical and emotional landscape of Stratford. Expect to be emotionally challenged ‘en route’ – one moment you will feel absolutely invisible, the next you will feel incredibly exposed. One particular encounter will see you examining your deepest regrets and another will have you putting yourself into the shoes of passers-by. I found the experience deeply profound, but I don’t want to reveal too much. Enter into the ‘en route’ experience with a completely open mind and you’ll get the maximum benefit from it.

The Londoneer

You are walking up a graffiti-covered rail bridge, your footsteps guided by an insistent, shouty, grimey soundtrack. Midway across, you realise where you are but not how you got there or where you are going. This is en route, an arresting piece of immersive theatre by Australian theatre group one step at a time like this. This is theatre that places audience members in their own private drama on the streets, within crowds, among unsuspecting strangers. Props, tasks and site-specific music by local artists make en route a curious journey, a dream-like experience where you are sometimes a passive avatar following commands, sometimes yourself and in control, contributing personal, subjective things along the way. …a memorable, mixed-up and moving journey that will stay with you long after the music has ended.

The Londonist

Launceston 2012

I am behind the scenes, in a private world, a shadow cast on the wall of this city’s sunny day.

Laneways I would otherwise not discover reveal tapestries in spray paint, niches carved in brick, underworlds with offerings to private gods. I dip in and out of shadow, of shops, of laneways, of dappled sky. These are no longer places of routine; to shop, to park, to transit between. They have been transmuted. En Route exhilarates, confuses, reveals, and may even move you to tears. I have been granted a golden key to the city. Things taken for granted take on new meaning; people, signs, shops, everything feels symbolic. Reinvented. Renewed. The city is no longer made of cement, brick and mortar, dust and noise: it is wonder, time, scent. It breathes. It has a heartbeat.

Wendy Newton, Write Response

Chicago 2011

Good theater can make the strange familiar. Great theater usually makes the familiar strange.

And what is more familiar than the city of Chicago? But if you take my fervent recommendation and go see “en route” I guarantee you’ll see this city in a way you have never seen it before. …the experience will be revelatory. This show is wholly immersive of the psyche. You are asked to explore your own feelings, find your own voice and, frankly, confront the way you can be in a place for maybe a lifetime and see so little. You get the chance to right that. On the walls, in your head, or out loud.
★★★★ (4 out of 4 stars)

Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune

A deliciously devised, surprise-laden piece of theatre. I found myself hyperaware of my environment and taking intense pleasure in the sense that I was on an adventure almost no one I passed knew about. Reaching its end, knowing I could never revisit the journey afresh, was almost heartbreaking. But I found myself newly alert to the supposed mundanity of the city; for those who need reminding of the everyday mysteries in which we swim, en route is a bracing reboot.

Kris Vire, Time Out, Chicago

With en route, One Step at a Time Like This gives the gift of sight. Their piece isn’t about getting us to see the city but about getting us to see, period. And I’d say that in my case, for a precious interval that started during En Route but outlasted it by a couple hours, that happened. Somewhere along the line, the sound track, the changes of scene, the instructions, the indeterminacy of it all combined to tear me loose from my intentions and allow me to do the sort of seeing that starts with a willingness to tell yourself you’ve got nowhere else to be and nothing you need to do. I temporarily forgot to want anything.

Tony Adler, The Chicago Reader

Edinburgh 2010 & 2023

…a wonderfully atmospheric sojourn that gently but firmly forces you to confront and break through your own emotional shield as you create your own drama.

Neil Cooper, The Herald

The true beauty of en route is that it creates theatre in all that is around you. From the moment the experience begins you can’t be certain what is part of the performance and what is mere reality. With all of your senses heightened, you start to see everything in poetic detail and wonder where each thing fits in the narrative of the city. Was the perfectly clean toothbrush discarded in a smelly alley a prop, placed there for some significance? Was everyone I passed on the street secretly in on the adventure – from the man that winked at me as I smiled at him, to the family who followed close behind me taking my picture? Joy surges through your veins as you spot an arrow chalked on the pavement, and you follow it unquestioningly until you pass a phonebox and it rings from within. Is that for you?

Lois Jeary, A Younger Theatre

…a kind of euphoria and a breathtaking new perspective of the city.

Alice Jones, The Independent

Brisbane 2010

A mind-blowing trip around our laneways and secret nooks …a revelation. I just took the en route tour and I’ve fallen in love with Brisbane all over again. I did things I never thought I’d do. For a short period of time I was Alice down the rabbit hole, seeing the world anew. I smiled non-stop.

Katherine Lyall-Watson, Our Brisbane

Darwin 2010

Standing amongst the shops and luxury hotels of the Darwin waterfront you imagine hearing the wail of sirens, the crashing of bombs, the distant voices reporting death and destruction in this very place, 19 February 1942. Then you’re brought dizzyingly back to contemporary Darwin, walking up through the CBD’s modern buildings, through little alleyways that juxtapose the old porcelanite English-style architecture with thirty and forty storey apartment blocks. This is theatre for one, en route, which is part of the Darwin Festival.

ArtsHub Australia

Adelaide 2010

As you listen to a wonderful selection of carefully chosen music you’ll find places you have never been (even if you’re local) and become immersed in a soundtrack that connects you to the places and people around you. …This is a totally enthralling experience.

Final Word: Brilliant.

Michael Coghlan, Rip It Up magazine

You a solitary traveller drifting through some other reality as you walk the high roads and back lanes of the Adelaide CBD. Your companions are iPods, text messages, and the odd person who appears out of the crowd to hold your hand. En Route asks you and challenges you for your understanding of your place in the city.
★★★★★

Tim Lloyd, AdelaideNow

It throws you off-balance, and has you looking with different eyes at a city and yourself; without giving it away, there aren’t many shows that would have you shouting from a multi-storey car park, or in my case buying a porcelain statuette in a record mart. En Route stood out as a true original.

Tim Cornwell, The Scotsman

Melbourne 2009

The most singular experience of the festival, however, was en route, a lesson in falling in love with the city. Walking down graffiti-coloured laneways, discovering speciality music shops, garage sales and messages from strangers, one was never sure what was constructed and what incidental to the experience. Soon enough, the modern-day flaneur was shouting on the street, writing on the walls and even running in front of a tram, holding hands with a complete stranger. …few performances manage to so completely tear through the bubble of reserve in which we spend most of our lives.

Jana Perkovic, ‘ReadThis Space’, RealTime Magazine

Cities are in some ways about isolation. (…) we shut down our perception of the countless faces and movements and surfaces around us. en route gently strips away those blinders in a way that is nothing less than revelatory.

John Bailey, Capital Idea

My simple and overwhelming response is this: I feel blessed to have been able to participate in en route. Strange, and rare to have this response to a work, but very true. The very personal nature of the work has filled my mind and heart with thoughts and feelings of immense possibility. The brilliant and expansive that can be found in the quotidian and microcosmic. The boundless world found in the interior of consciousness, and the wonder and meditative energy that can be derived from walking the city. en route has inspired me to return once again to my long lost past-time of nothingness filled with fascination: the gentle joy of simply being une flâneuse.

Actual/ideal

Performance History and Awards

Edinburgh: Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2023
Singapore: Singapore International Festival of Art 2021
Auckland: Auckland Arts Festival 2013
Seoul: Seoul Performing Arts Festival 2012
London: Cultural Olympiad, London Festival, 2012
Launceston: Junction Arts Festival 2012 and 2013
Chicago: Chicago Shakespeare Theater 2011
Edinburgh: Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2010
Darwin: Darwin Festival 2010
Brisbane: Laneways Fiesta 2010
Adelaide: Adelaide Fringe Festival 2010 and Adelaide Festival Centre 2011
Melbourne: Melbourne Fringe Festival 2009

Winner: Best Theatre Production; Adelaide Fringe 2010
Winner: Best Live Art; Melbourne Fringe 2009
Winner: Green Room Award 2009: Production (Theatre – Alternative & Hybrid Performance)
Winner: Green Room Award 2009: Creative Collaboration (Theatre – Alternative & Hybrid Performance)


Creative Team

Singapore: Singapore International Festival of Art 2021

Created by: one step at a time like this – Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert

Producer: Richard Jordan Productions and Bureau of Works
Associate Artist: Sharon Thompson
Singapore Audio Voices: Shafiqhah Efandi; Zee Wong and Tan Shou Chen
Singapore en route Guardian Manager: Merissa Tang
Singapore en route Guardians: A Priyadarshini; Abel Koh; Callista Anne Yin Kai Ren; Chang Ting; Cherie Tan Yan Zhen; Clarissa Liaw; Gracian Chua; Hiddy Taib; Pang Shun Wai, Philippe; Siew Jia Qi; Yeo Lisha
Purgatorio Artist: Kilas, assisted by noez 23

Thank you to all the Singaporean independent musicians for contributing their talent and music to making en route unique to their city.

Paint the Sky Red
Kin Leonn
Zeekos Perakos
Samuel Truth
SonicBrat
In Each Hand A Cutlass
Kulchar
Giants Must Fall
SA
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Falling Islands
Intriguant
and
Kynan Robinson and Des Peres
Cye Wood
and
Leonard Cohen

Auckland: Auckland Arts Festival 2013

Created by: one step at a time like this – Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert

Producer: Richard Jordan Productions
Associate Artist: Sharon Thompson
Artist Intern: Daniele Constance
Auckland Audio Voices: Alison Bruce, Sophie Henderson and Curtis Vowell
Auckland en route Guardian Manager: Lydia Zanetti
Auckland en route Guardians: Oliver Connew, Scotty Cotter, Matt Gillanders, Phoebe Heyhoe, Keira Howat, Corinna Hunziker, Zahra Killeen-Chance, Guy Langford, Serene Lorimer, Maria Walker, Jahra Wasasala, James Wenley

Thank you to all the New Zealand independent musicians for contributing their talent and music to making en route unique to their city.

Sora Shima
Cool Rainbows
Lion Eyes
Christoph el Truento
Come Down Kid
An Emerald City
Jennifer Katherine Shields
Farah Loux
Dyaltov
and
Kynan Robinson and Des Peres
Cye Wood

Seoul: Seoul Performing Arts Festival 2012

Created by: one step at a time like this – Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert

Presented by: Seoul Performing Arts Festival
Producer: Richard Jordan Productions
Associate Artists: Jackson Castiglione, Ej Song
Associate Director: Haesung Park (Imaginer’s Theatre)
Translator/Interpreter: Kathy Kyunghoo Lee
SPAF Intern: Lona Jang
Assistant: Bo Hyeon Kim
en route Guardians: Sunae Kang, Taejung Kim, Danbi Lee, Eunhee Jung, Seungyeop Ji, Yunchul Choi, Jieun Choi, Minsun Hong

Thank you to all the Seoul independent musicians for contributing their talent and music to making en route unique to their city.

No Respect For Beauty
Sogyumo Acacia Band
Minwheee Lee
Invisible Fish
Hail to the Deaf
Idiotape
Mimyo
Daydream
Jambinai
Byul.org
Vidulgi Ooyoo
Rossypp
Jowall
Sunkyeol
Sleepstalker
Donawhale
Frenzy
Big Baby Driver
and
Kynan Robinson and Des Peres
Cye Wood

London: Cultural Olympiad, London Festival, 2012

Created by: one step at a time like this – Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert

Presented by: Theatre Royal Stratford East
Producer: Richard Jordan Productions
Associate Artist: Jackson Castiglione
London Audio Voices: Katherine Glyde, Simeilia Hodge-Dallaway, Dwayne Hutchinson, Stella Odunlami
en route Guardians: Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert, Jackson Castiglione, Elaine Ivy Harris
Purgatorio Visual Artist: Cat Bagg

Thank you to all the London independent musicians for contributing their talent and music to making en route unique to their city.

Arcam
Obe
Inca Gold
Third Light
Mike Payne
Herzog
The Oscillation
Hypermagic
The Echelon Effect
Rough Fields
The Winchester Club
Gavin Singleton
Years of Rice and Salt
and
Kynan Robinson and Des Peres
Cye Wood

Launceston: Junction Arts Festival 2012 and 2013

Created by: one step at a time like this – Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert

Produced by: Junction Arts Festival and one step at a time like this in Association with Sawtooth Ari and Richard Jordan Productions
Associate Producer: Gillian Marsden
en route Guardians: Ira Bleakly, Rowena Dinsmore, Caroline Florance, Lewis Kingston, Lena Lindblad, Gillian Marsden, Erica Proud
Purgatorio Visual Artist: Mat Carey

Thank you to all the Tasmanian independent musicians for contributing their talent and music to making en route unique to their city.

B-Film
Sorry, Alaska!
Lords of Leisure
King Carousel
Transcription of Organ Music
Alan Gogoll
Enola Fall
Ben Reason
Javier Hernandez
and
Kynan Robinson and Des Peres
Cye Wood

Chicago: Chicago Shakespeare Theater 2011

Created by: one step at a time like this – Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir and Julian Rickert

Presented by: Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Producer: Richard Jordan Productions
Associate Artist: Jackson Castiglione
en route Guardians: Bernard Balbot, Jillian Burfete, Jackson Castiglione, Ethan Dubin, Elain Ivy Harris, Greta Honold, Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert
Associate Producer: Greta Honold
Chicago Audio Voices: Hillary Clemens, Erik Hellman, Greta Honold, Ericka Ratcliff
Purgatorio Visual Artist: Rob Funderburk

Thank you to all the Chicago independent musicians for contributing their talent and music to making en route unique to their city.

Through A Rebel Heart
The Flashbulb
Dreamend
Rocket Miner
It’s Just Vanity
Norreport
The Hudson Branch
Sunny Shadows
We/Or/Me
Thirsting Quench
Horatiu Ormindeanu
Implodes
and
Kynan Robinson and Des Peres
Cye Wood

Edinburgh: Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2010

Created by: one step at a time like this – Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert

Presented by: Traverse Theatre
Producer: Richard Jordan Productions
en route Guardians: Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert, Elise Terranova
Audio Voices: Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert

Thank you to all the Edinburgh independent musicians for contributing their talent and music to making en route unique to their city.

Esperi
The Lava Experiments
Marvin Wilson
Debutant
So Many Animal Calls
The Gothenburg Address
Araya
de trop
The Anison
Neu Gestalt
Zefs Chasing Cara
Eagle Owl
Keser
A Wake A Week
and
Kynan Robinson and Des Peres
Cye Wood

Darwin: Darwin Festival 2010

Created by: one step at a time like this – Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert

Presented by: Darwin Festival
Producer: Richard Jordan Productions
en route Guardians: Ned Lindsay, Bonnie Parker, Tara Robertson, Susan Vandenham
Special Guest Artist: Kris Keogh
Purgatorio Visual Artist: Marcus Dixon

Thank you to all the Darwin independent musicians for contributing their talent and music to making en route unique to their city.

Kris Keogh
Moses
Alex Brindell
Rico Adjrun
Snow in Cities
Jess Ribeiro and The Bone Collectors
The Presley Boys
Monster Monster
Mr. Maps
and
Kynan Robinson and Des Peres
Cye Wood

Brisbane: Laneways Fiesta 2010

Created by: one step at a time like this – Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert

Presented by: Brisbane City Council and Backbone Youth Arts
Producer: Richard Jordan Productions
en route Guardians: Backbone Youth Arts – Sandra Carluccio, Alex Litherland, Belinda Locke, Peter Norton, Chloe Tara, Rowena Taylor
Backbone Youth Arts Producer: Nicholas Paine

Thank you to all the Brisbane musicians for contributing their talent and music to making en route unique to their city.

Mr. Maps
Willows
Soma
Toy Balloon
Sounds From The Ward
Anna Parton
Archdukes
Leighton Craig
Alrey Batol
Music For Slow Dancing
Hazards For Swimming Naked
Monster Monster
grids/units/planes
Blunt Instrument
Nikko
Ghost Notes
Arrows
Adam Cadell
and
Kynan Robinson and Des Peres
Cye Wood

Adelaide: Adelaide Fringe Festival 2010 and Adelaide Festival Centre 2011

Created by: one step at a time like this – Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert

Presented by: Adelaide Fringe Festival 2010 and Performing Lines Mobile States with Adealide Festival Centre 2011
en route Guardians: Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert, Jackson Castiglione (2011)

Thank you to all the Adelaide musicians for contributing their talent and music to making en route unique to their city.

Box Elder
Steering by Stars
Panoptique Electrical
Zeal
Aviator Lane
Lumonics
Al Thumm
Dylan Crismani
The Tantrums
The Carter Bros
The Mark of Cain
Love Stereo
and
Kynan Robinson and Des Peres
Cye Wood

Melbourne: Melbourne Fringe Festival 2009

Created by: one step at a time like this – Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert

Presented by: Melbourne Fringe Festival 2009
en route Guardians: Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz, Paul Moir, Julian Rickert

Thank you to all the Melbourne musicians for contributing their talent and music to making en route unique to their city.

ii
Scissors For Sparrows
Sodastream
Jarek Lis
Panoptique Electrical
The Tantrums
Kynan Robinson and Des Peres
Cye Wood

Partners and Support

With support from: Melbourne Fringe; Adelaide Fringe; Edinburgh Fringe


Bookings

Bookings for en route in Melbourne are available by appointment