Silent Dinner with Amanda Coogan and collaborators
Saturday February 7, 2014
Performance: 1pm - 9pm FREE
Post-performance talk: 9pm-10pm FREE
-------ALL WELCOME
ASL Interpretation provided at the talk
Audience is free to come and go during performance
FADO Performance Art Centre presents Silent Dinner, an 8-hour performance in which a group of 13 people prepare, cook, and eat a dinner in shared silence, without communicating in their own languages, in front of the attending audience. The participants are a combination of Deaf and hearing artists, performers and non-performers. Special guest artist Amanda Coogan Ireland, CoDA and FADO Director Shannon Cochrane conceived of this project for the inaugural Progress Festival.
PERFORMERS
H. Mary Balint
Amanda Coogan
Shannon Cochrane
Mikiki
Laura Nanni
Chris Welsh
Sage Willow
and others to be announced soon!
Volunteer Signers will be present on the day of the performance in the theatre lobby to provide information for visiting audience.
If you have any questions about accessibility during the performance, please contact Shannon Cochrane at info@performanceart.ca or 416-822-3219.
Silent Dinner is presented by FADO Performance Art Centre in association with PROGRESS: an International Festival of Performance and Ideas.
416-822-3219
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ABOUT SILENT DINNER 1pm - 8pm
Silent Dinner is inspired by Canadian dance artist Justine Chambers's on-going immersive dining performance project entitled Family Dinner; and American artist Lois Weaver's well-known public discourse practice entitled The Long Table, which is a "dinner party structured by etiquette, where conversation is the only course." The form of Weaver's The Long Table acknowledges the sometimes uncomfortable side of both private exchange and public engagement, while celebrating the potential for new forms of knowledge-making and sharing, while the rules or rather, the helpful hints as Weaver calls them state that, There can be silence.
In FADO's Silent Dinner, silence is transformed from a potential born of discomfort or newness into the landscape in which direct communication between people who dont share the same language is negotiated. The dinner table becomes a meeting place for the intersection of culture and language hearing and Deaf culture, English and ASL, performance as language via a performance score that culminates in a shared meal.
Over the course of the 8-hours of the performance, the performers experience and the audience bares witness to the many varied and complex layers of negotiation and communication being performed: construction and deconstruction, art and food, theatre and everyday ritual, the performance of the public and the private. The table functions as both motif in theatre the table is a prop, in performance it is material and metaphor for community and connection.
POST-PERFORMANCE CONVERSATION @ 9pm
The audience is invited post-performance for coffee, dessert and conversation with Coogan, collaborators, and audience. ASL interpretation will be provided during the talk.
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ABOUT PROGRESS
SummerWorks, in partnership with The Theatre Centre and a roster of Toronto theatre and performance organizations/presenters and companies including FADO Performance Art Centre, Buddies in Bad Times, Dancemakers, Why Not Theatre, Video Fag, and Volcano Theatre, brings the world to Toronto with Progress: an International Festival of Performance and Ideas, February 4-15, 2015. All Progress performances take place at The Theatre Centre 1115 Queen St W, host venue of the festival. "As the home of Progress, The Theatre Centre will serve as that point of connection between international programming, innovative workshops, rich and diverse dialogues and the local community.
@SummerWorks
#ProgressTO
ACCESSIBILITY AT The Theatre Centre
The Theatre Centre is an accessible facility, with barrier-free washrooms and an accessibility lift to facilitate movement between floors. If you are planning a trip to The Theatre Centre and have any questions about accessibility or would like to make any special arrangements, please call our box office at 416-538-0988. We will be happy to make any arrangements to help facilitate an enjoyable visit to The Theatre Centre.
Various events at Progress Festival offer accessibility resources including ASL interpretation. Please contact the festival directly with any questions about general festival programming and questions about accessibility at: info@summerworks.ca or call 416-628-8216.
