Dinner Parties
I think my favourite performance is creating a dinner party for good friends. In my Master of Fine Arts thesis, I compared creating a dinner party to directing a show. First you have to cast “the show” by picking the right guest but it’s not so much just that one person is great fun so we’ll have them come but it’s the chemistry between the guests that is instinctual. If I do say so myself, I am good at casting shows and very good at putting the right combination of guests together. My poor ex-husband learned very quickly not to impulsively invite people to our dinner parties. It would be like the assistant director saying “Hey I thought it would be fun to put an extra character in the play.”
Next comes the set. Another thing my ex-husband would shake his head at would be my insistence of setting the table and fixing up the room mid day. “We could pull out the table and set it after we serve the hors d’eouvres,” he’d say naively. For me it would be like having the set builders still on stage when the audience arrived. It’s all about ambience, the lighting, the candles, the napkins and all the tiny details that make the guests feel special.
Music is important. Not too loud to drown out conversation but at a level that will provide the mood subconsciously. This changes throughout the night, what music the guests arrive to and post dinner music are two entirely different things. In the theatre badly chosen music can ruin anything the actors are doing. It also at times is irrelevant and annoying, so throughout the night often none is preferred.
I don’t believe in seating arrangements but am so certain of the mix of people that they can sort this out themselves adding an improvisational mood to the evening. Often the pre-dinner hors d’eouvres allow the affiliations to form between the guests.
Then comes the director’s style – the food. My style I would have to say is about abundance and richness. I love a table groaning with food - rich, luscious, and aesthetically pleasing food. I rarely have run out of food at a dinner party. On the contrary, I usually send people home with containers of leftovers.
Right before the dessert, I have a way of knowing whether my party is a success. I sit back in my chair, close my eyes and listen to the energy in the room. The room roars with laughter and intense conversation. It fills me with such joy to have created this space for people to enjoy both food and good company. This moment creates the same satisfaction in me as sensing the audience in a successful show. My attunement to what an audience feels about a play is acute. I can feel the moment the audience settles into the suspension of disbelief and gets carried away. I can sense in the auditorium if someone is restless when the actors are dragging their heels. This makes me cringe and I also feel their restlessness, silently begging the actors to quicken their pace.
An odd thing that happens in most dinner parties I have is I lose my appetite completely, no matter how delicious the food. I am in an act of creation that requires no food. When I’m directing I’m the same. I could go without breaks or food the whole day, if it wasn’t for Equity rules and regulations. There is an excited energy that fills my body with a satisfaction that eating seems superfluous.
What conclusion can I make to my relationship to my body? When my attention is focused outward to giving, I do not even think about eating. It only occurs to me that I’m hungry when the process of creating is over and my body is able to get through with it’s signal “I’m hungry”. It is in this moment that the complexity of eating takes over.
I think my favourite performance is creating a dinner party for good friends. In my Master of Fine Arts thesis, I compared creating a dinner party to directing a show. First you have to cast “the show” by picking the right guest but it’s not so much just that one person is great fun so we’ll have them come but it’s the chemistry between the guests that is instinctual. If I do say so myself, I am good at casting shows and very good at putting the right combination of guests together. My poor ex-husband learned very quickly not to impulsively invite people to our dinner parties. It would be like the assistant director saying “Hey I thought it would be fun to put an extra character in the play.”
Next comes the set. Another thing my ex-husband would shake his head at would be my insistence of setting the table and fixing up the room mid day. “We could pull out the table and set it after we serve the hors d’eouvres,” he’d say naively. For me it would be like having the set builders still on stage when the audience arrived. It’s all about ambience, the lighting, the candles, the napkins and all the tiny details that make the guests feel special.
Music is important. Not too loud to drown out conversation but at a level that will provide the mood subconsciously. This changes throughout the night, what music the guests arrive to and post dinner music are two entirely different things. In the theatre badly chosen music can ruin anything the actors are doing. It also at times is irrelevant and annoying, so throughout the night often none is preferred.
I don’t believe in seating arrangements but am so certain of the mix of people that they can sort this out themselves adding an improvisational mood to the evening. Often the pre-dinner hors d’eouvres allow the affiliations to form between the guests.
Then comes the director’s style – the food. My style I would have to say is about abundance and richness. I love a table groaning with food - rich, luscious, and aesthetically pleasing food. I rarely have run out of food at a dinner party. On the contrary, I usually send people home with containers of leftovers.
Right before the dessert, I have a way of knowing whether my party is a success. I sit back in my chair, close my eyes and listen to the energy in the room. The room roars with laughter and intense conversation. It fills me with such joy to have created this space for people to enjoy both food and good company. This moment creates the same satisfaction in me as sensing the audience in a successful show. My attunement to what an audience feels about a play is acute. I can feel the moment the audience settles into the suspension of disbelief and gets carried away. I can sense in the auditorium if someone is restless when the actors are dragging their heels. This makes me cringe and I also feel their restlessness, silently begging the actors to quicken their pace.
An odd thing that happens in most dinner parties I have is I lose my appetite completely, no matter how delicious the food. I am in an act of creation that requires no food. When I’m directing I’m the same. I could go without breaks or food the whole day, if it wasn’t for Equity rules and regulations. There is an excited energy that fills my body with a satisfaction that eating seems superfluous.
What conclusion can I make to my relationship to my body? When my attention is focused outward to giving, I do not even think about eating. It only occurs to me that I’m hungry when the process of creating is over and my body is able to get through with it’s signal “I’m hungry”. It is in this moment that the complexity of eating takes over.