12 cities. 12 emotional states. One evening.
What is Meanwhile Elsewhere?
Meanwhile Elsewhere is a theatrical odyssey—one that drifts between dream and decay, memory and invention, past and future. It is a performance woven from light, movement, and poetry, where cities do not merely stand still but breathe, evolve, and dissolve before our eyes.
At its core, the piece explores what we build and what we destroy—monuments that vanish in the name of progress, histories rewritten in steel and glass. Through ethereal choreography, layered visuals, and shifting landscapes of sound and shadow, Meanwhile Elsewhere creates worlds that flicker between the real and the unreal.
At the heart of it all are two figures—one who rules and remembers, the other who wanders and dreams. Their dialogue unfolds across imagined cities, resonating with the forces that shape our own: power, ambition, loss, and the fragile hope that something of us will remain. Nowhere is this more vivid than in the chess sequence, where empire is reduced to its simplest form—each move a decision that reshapes the board, each sacrifice an echo of cities lost and forgotten.
The Inspiration
Meanwhile Elsewhere is not an adaptation of Invisible Cities—it is a conversation with it, a response to Italo Calvino’s poetic inquiry into place, memory, and the act of storytelling. While Calvino’s novel serves as a point of departure, this performance ventures beyond its pages, drawing from lived experiences, contemporary realities, and the deeply personal landscapes we all carry within us.
At its core, Meanwhile Elsewhere is not about cities at all—it is about the people who build them, who dream of them, who leave them behind. Kublai and Marco are not bound to their historical roles as emperor and explorer. Here they become two souls in an ever-evolving conversation about power and impermanence, about what is seen and what is felt.
Through light, movement, and sound, the performance invites the audience into this dialogue—not just as spectators, but as travellers themselves. It asks: What do we take with us when we go? What do we leave behind? And in the end, are we the ones shaping the cities, or do the cities shape us?
The Theatrical Language
Meanwhile Elsewhere exists in the space between reality and dream—a performance where cities emerge not from steel and stone but from bodies in motion, shifting light, and voices that echo across time.
The staging is fluid—a great scrim separates the audience from the world on stage, turning every image into something glimpsed through mist, through memory, through the veil of time. Smoke swirls, obscuring and revealing, as new cities take shape before dissolving again.
“I left, but the city followed me.”
“Somewhere, the streets are still waiting for me.”
“Each day, we bury the past and call it progress.”
Movement and dance are integral—performers trace invisible maps with their bodies, their gestures embodying longing, resistance, and the weight of impermanence. Cities rise and collapse within steps, within breaths, within the shifting interplay of light and shadow.
Among the most human moments: a migrant truck driver and a young woman on a long journey—two strangers, divided by language, bound only by the quiet understanding of shared roads. It is here that the piece finds its emotional core—not just in imagined cities, but in the fleeting connections between those who pass through them.
Why It Matters Today
Fragility of cities and civilizations
Modern cities are in a constant state of negotiation between growth and decay. The performance asks what truly remains after time has passed.
Search for meaning
Meanwhile Elsewhere invites audiences to see their own cities with fresh eyes—to question the invisible forces shaping them.
Personal and collective memory
We all carry cities within us—the streets of our childhood, the places we have left behind, the homes we have lost or found.
The power of storytelling
The act of describing a city shapes its very existence. What stories do we tell about the places we inhabit? How do those narratives define who we are?
If you could map the places that have shaped you—not just in geography, but in feeling—what would your city look like?
Director’s Note
Why do we long for places we have never seen?
Why do we carry echoes of stories we barely understand?
Meanwhile Elsewhere was born from a fascination with the spaces we inhabit—both external and internal. It is a journey through imagined cities, yes, but more than that, it is a meditation on the distances between us—between those who build and those who leave, between those who rule and those who wander, between what we say and what is truly heard.
This is not simply a performance about place. It is about power and fragility, about the architectures of longing and exile. It is about Kublai and Marco, and the unspoken weight of their words—their miscommunications, their desires, their search for meaning in a world that is constantly slipping through their fingers.
Blending poetic narration, evocative visuals, movement, and live music, Meanwhile Elsewhere is neither just theatre nor a simple retelling—it is an experience that shifts between dream and memory, between what is lost and what remains. Whatever lens you choose, I hope that somewhere within these cities, you find echoes of your own—your own roads, your own silences, your own attempts to be understood.
Welcome to Meanwhile Elsewhere.
Welcome to the places we build, the places we leave behind, and the places we are still trying to find.
Yadavan Chandran
Director, Meanwhile Elsewhere