EatEat

EatEat was a performative meal created with Leicester based refugees and asylum seekers.

Audience and performers sat together around a 10m long concrete table in Leicester's oldest building, the Guildhall. Sharing a meal or chatting to your neighbour were interrupted with a blast of action or music or a lesson in how to eat with your hands. A song of love and loss was sung, a traditional Persian dance was danced on the table to Britney Spears, photos of dispersed cast members were passed around, an English lesson was taught by a teacher, private conversation was made public.

Why we made EatEat

“When did the word refugee become an insult? In a climate of increasing mistrust of a faceless mass of outsiders I wanted to work with these individuals, put the truths of their lives in public. I wanted to explore also my own sense of belonging/not belonging.

I wanted to start with the idea of food as welcome – I remembered visiting my Cork relatives and always always having to eat something…

When we talk about food we talk about everything. Everyone has food to celebrate something - a birth, a death, a marriage. We have powerful memories of exquisite food, sacred food, hunger, the taste of something we didn't want to eat, the smell of the kitchen we grew up in. We all have to eat.

I didn’t want to make a piece of exotica or a kind of pornography of experience. At the same time, I did want to deal with people’s realities, give tiny insights into what they had left and what they had found.

The audience were the performers’ guests not passive spectators, the event felt shared, we all felt lucky to be there....”
Renny O'Shea, Director

Credits and performance details

EatEat was commissioned by and first made in collaboration with Leicester Haymarket Theatre in June 2003. It was made in a new form as Rantsoen with Victoria in Ghent, Belgium in June 2004.

Performers:
Kathy Dojan, Bilfer Ecin, Paulo George, Mohsen Karim, Ben Ncube, Ebrahim Persomi, Chris Sibanda, Omhala Wa Yozefu, Majeed Zarei.

Conceived and directed by Renny O'Shea; design Simon Banham; lighting design Mike Brookes; choreographer Sally Doughty; writer Kevin Fegan; music Olly Fox.