ASPARAGUS
2016
Performance Co-creator
A dinner table is planted in the middle of a space. So far, only two seats are occupied, but it is against the rules and regulations of a formal dinner to eat the food before everyone arrives.
‘’Asparagus’’ is a theatrical piece whose creation was based on the words TABLE and FOOD.
The dinner TABLE is normally the space where the private becomes public; a social space for co- existing and sharing and it does bear a strong resemblance with the theatrical space. What is there (on the table) is ready to be consumed by the spectator.
FOOD on the other hand is the material, the tool. Instead of being consumed, food becomes an element constantly transformed on stage. It becomes the storyteller; the personification of the people missing at the table; a language we use; as well as the symbol of anything with which we want to fill our body with.
The aim of the piece is to subvert the idea of a dinner party. By using food we explore what it means to have an insatiable appetite. As individuals, we carry expectations and disillusionments that make the fear of missing out (FOMO) a “disease” of the XXI century. Thus there is an urgent quest for fulfilment from these two main characters left alone on the stage. Through the food and the table, they will reveal their deepest desires in a humorous and absurd way.
Asparagus // * TEASER * from Mafalda Miranda Jacinto on Vimeo.
CREDITS
CREATED AND PERFORMED BY Anthi Kougia and Mafalda Miranda Jacinto
LIGHT DESIGN Nao Nagai
SET CONSTRUCTION Rachel Champion
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Patrick Furness, Clio Alphas, Berthe Fortin, Joe Fairweather-Hole, Konstantinos Foukis and Maya Goldstein.
Allgemeine Beitung: “Paarungsverhalten zur Spargelzeit: Abschluss des Performance Festivals in Mainz” by Marianne Hoffman
LIGHT DESIGN Nao Nagai
SET CONSTRUCTION Rachel Champion
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Patrick Furness, Clio Alphas, Berthe Fortin, Joe Fairweather-Hole, Konstantinos Foukis and Maya Goldstein.
PRESS
Allgemeine Beitung: “Paarungsverhalten zur Spargelzeit: Abschluss des Performance Festivals in Mainz” by Marianne Hoffman
DATES
June 23th & 25th, 2016 | Theatre George Wood, Goldsmiths University of London | MA in Performance Making Final Shows Festival
October 21st, 2016 | Nunnery Gallery, London | Visions in the Nunnery
December 14th & 15th, 2016 | Spazio Teatro NO’HMA Teresa Pomodoro, Milan, IT | Premio Internazionale “Il Teatro Nudo” di Teresa Pomodoro
April 29th & 30th, 2017 / PAD (Performance Art Depot), Mainz, DE / International Festival of Performance Arts
June 20th, 2021 | UTOP!E Konkret Festival at FITZ! Stuttgard, DE [film adaptation for online screening]
September 3rd, 2021 | OUR FESTIVAL Athens, GR
REVIEWS
Asparagus by Anthi Kougia & Mafalda Miranda Jacinto
REVIEW BY YANNIS POLIVOTIS
REVIEW BY YANNIS POLIVOTIS
3rd of September 2022,
Theatre of Rematia, Chalandri
Theatre of Rematia, Chalandri
A deathly silence falls like an airy veil over the two hypnotized companions of a long and perfectly laid table - an inert image that disturbingly dominates the center of the stage.
The silence - I am not referring to that silence which defines a silent order, but to the eternal silence of life passing without being experienced - is not far from being broken. The two lonely figures - on the surface unknown to each other, but in fact joined together as the two sides of the same human heart - awaken from a deep sleep and face their world as if for the first time.
The world around them takes on an unprecedented dimension; it is now endowed with colours and sensations, with sounds and tastes, with pleasure and a desire to explore, like the play of two children who have just walked for the first time and are spilling out into the street, into nature and the unspeakable things that surround their existence.
Anthi and Mafalda awaken in the dream of the theatrical space, oppositely positioned on the long table of the stage, in a similar way to their biological "awakening" at the two ends of the Mediterranean - Portugal and Greece. The unexpected "meeting" of Anthi and Mafalda awakens the dormant part of consciousness that blindly obeys the moral conventions of our time, an adult age that is waiting patiently for its death.