United Rites Of The Table (In Parts)

In Collaboration with Giada Alazraki, Preston Burger, Paula Chaves, Dora Koimtzi, Ely Levin, Yuko Mitsuishi & Andrew Weeks

Part I Newspaper Event ( A. Knowles 1965)

Part II Eating

Part III Digestion and Emancipating

Part IV The Table Turning and Serving Soup

The piece began with my desire to understand current events in the world. I started to stack newspapers I'd read in the corner of a room, and as the stack aged and got taller they reminded me of a spine. At the time, I was working with an elderly woman who could not walk very much and didn't like to eat. And when she did eat, she couldn't balance the food very well on her fork. One of the articles I had read was about a food crisis in Haiti. There, people were storming the palace gates, and someone was quoted as saying, "When people are hungry, that's when we get angry." I think of these events when I think of how this piece began to evolve. These specific narratives are lost because their meanings are still in progress. In my collaboration with dancers and musicians, we have begun to combine our stories and test our differences for finding a new common language for rituals of exchanging that take place at and around the table. We have no set dialogue as yet.

Left: Ely Levin Right: Andrew Weeks

Stretching Bones

This video shows part of the making of the broth that was served in "United Rites of the Table". 

In it: a part of the vertabrae, scapulas, and sacrum of the pig from New Year's, The breastbone of the Christmas turkey,  legs of a chicken, a carrot, a parsnip, citrus,  and salt.