This was the eighth edition of Dining Room Tales and was presented by Jurgen Fritz.
This ‘version’ took place in the Goethe Institute in Ocean Street, Woollahra.
We were greeted by a very amiable host Xan Colman who offered us a glass of wine and some nibbles prior to the performance.
We were then .ushered into a large room for the performance.where were greeted by a huge cloth which filled most of the room. We were told to get under the fabric and for each of us there was a hole made out to put our head through and then there were slits in the cloth for us to put our arms through (installation by Christine Biehler, direction by Xan Colman).
We were each given a chair to sit on under the cloth as well as a knife and fork and a water bottle which were tied/bandaged to one of our Out the front was Jurgen Fritz whose cloth went up to bis waist. so he could present to the group. Jurgen’s presentation was primarily by way of a powerpoint/slide show of some of the performance art events he has hosted and some of his performance art philosophy/theory..
We were each presented with a small tray which had velcro stuck to its base so that it was reasonably stable when we received our tasty lunch fare which comprised a vegetable soup with some melon in it, and a mains rice dish served inside a rockmelon shell.
Jurgen told us- we were a smallish group about fifteen people- how devoted he was to being a performance artist and what he seeks most from his performance art is that the audience goes through some of transformative experience.
Verdict. In the true tradition of performance art we, the audience, enjoyed a very different dining room experience, with a ‘makeshift cloth’ table. This was the main, radical element of the show. I felt Jurgen’s presentation was a little tame, compared to some of his past events, and didn’t amount to a truly transformative experience.
The next and eighth edition of Dining Room Tales will feature Russian Japanese concert pianist Yoshi Hamano with a show called ‘Breathe’ which will take place at the restaurant Jazushi, 145 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills at 7pm on Thursday 19th March, 2020.
https://www.trybooking.com/book/event?eid=595959&