Riwa Saab (BA Performance & Creative Enterprise)
Key details:
- Department:
- Drama (BA Performance & Creative Enterprise)
Biography
Cross-disciplinary Artist
How would you describe your practice?
I’m a cross-disciplinary artist who works with space, sound, and words. I started writing and performing my original music and poetry while growing up in Beirut, and quickly moved into theatre-making as an embodied way of story-telling.
I’m interested in how art puts people and our relationships at the center of the political narratives we inhabit, while particularly exploring the diasporic experience of building geographic/cultural bridges, unpacking generational and familial baggage, and creating space for pockets of joy. As well as being a creator, I’m a theatre director and dramaturg, producer, and facilitator, collaborating with other creatives in organising the spaces where art and audiences gather.
Is there one stand-out project that has shaped your development?
My final performance for PACE is a verbatim theatre piece that explores the 2006 war in Lebanon from the perspective of people who experienced it at six years of age. The piece asks the question “how do we center ourselves in the narrative to change the way we talk about politics and break the cycle of generational trauma?” It’s a work in progress, and the process has offered me exciting avenues with devising, new approaches to conducting safeguarding measures in a culturally sensitive manner, and a fluid way of developing form and structure after engaging with people’s real stories and memories.
How has the PACE programme shaped you for the Arts industry?
PACE has offered me a wealth of support and challenges, expanding my practice and preparing me to be resilient in a rapidly changing world. The course has enabled me to hone in on my poetic voice, engaging both isness and surrealism in my writing. The collaborative nature of the programme has fed into my directorial and dramaturgical approach to working on shows, such as on the coLABorate production Between: A New Musical, and upon assisting directors. Other work includes designing sound for short films and poetry tracks, and writing and producing my own original music.
My craft spans into the digital realm, and I’m interested in finding hybrid forms of digital and physical spaces where audiences can still experience the ‘liveness’ of performance.
