Devised and performed by Kym Vercoe, SEVEN KILOMETRES NORTH-EAST, commences as a quirky and insightful exploration of her love of travel and her numerous trips to the beautiful and troubled country of Bosnia. Tales of exotic characters, places and encounters are embellished with the aromas and rituals of smoking and drinking coffee and slivovitz.

Kym’s amusing attempts with the language and inevitable conversations about kangaroos indicate that she is not a superficial tourist and that she is there to meet and get to know the people, and absorb the history and beauty of Bosnia. The audience is lulled into thinking this may be an evening of travel, culture, romance and holiday videos. However, a discussion about thanatourism, or dark tourism, that focuses on sights of atrocities, death and disasters, hints that this narrative may examine a different story of Bosnia.

Our intrepid tourist stays in a spa resort seven kilometres north-east of a magnificent World Heritage Listed sixteenth century stone bridge, across the River Drina. Much later, after returning to Australia, she discovers that this resort was used during the war for incomprehensible atrocities against Bosnian women. This knowledge profoundly disturbs her and her probing into these acts of violence and her reactions makes this a beautiful, profound and disturbing production.

The bridge also has a murky and horrific role in the 1992–95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Kym delves quite deeply into this event and her response to it, and also the current day response by the local people, journalists, the International Criminal Tribunal and tourist guidebooks.

Videos are projected onto a large screen at the back of the stage of locations she visited and the sounds such as birdsong, folk music and running water in streams and rivers provide a beautiful and evocative backdrop. Sean Bacon’s artistry in these projections of Kym’s videos makes a haunting contrast to the sometimes dark material of the dialogue.

Sladjana Hodzic’s beautiful and haunting singing adds to the evening’s atmosphere. Her rich and powerful voice is perfect for the unfamiliar structure and scales of Balkan music.

SEVEN KILOMETRES NORTH-EAST is a version 1.0 production, a company that makes devised, political performances. Their productions are based on the research and investigation of factual content.

I thoroughly recommend SEVEN KILOMETRES NORTH-EAST. The play opened at the Seymour Centre on the 8^th March, appropriately on International Women’s Day, and runs until 22^nd March.