Banished? productions
| Formation | 2005 |
|---|---|
| Type | Theatre group |
| Purpose | Avantpop theatre |
| Location |
|
Artistic director(s) | Carmen C. Wong |
| Website | http://www.banishedproductions.org/ |
banished? productions is an avantpop performance company based in Washington DC that combines mass media with audience immersion in productions that play with text and form to explore the boundaries of theater and performance art. The company is perhaps best known for its Futurist meal/performance piece A Tactile Dinner.
History
banished? productions was founded in 2005 by Carmen C. Wong and Niell DuVal, joined shortly thereafter by scenic and lighting designer Levia Lew. Their first production was a one-night staged reading of Adam de la Halle’s Greenwood Follies & Other Old French Plays. With help from a grant by the Embassy of Spain in Washington, they were then able to stage their first full production, Desire Caught by the Tail, a surreal and rarely-produced play by Pablo Picasso, as part of the inaugural Capital Fringe Festival in 2006. [1][2]
Other critically-acclaimed works include a production of Charles Mee’s post-modern play bobrauschenbergamerica [3] and a premier of My Comic Valentine: A Comic Book for the Stage. [4] banished? productions also contributes art installations to local venues and has produced an original podcast walking tour play about DC’s Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods called Walk with Me.
A Tactile Dinner
The company is perhaps best known for its original multi-media food immersion play A Tactile Dinner, which debuted at the Capital Fringe Festival in 2009. This tongue-in-cheek dinner theater was both based on and a comment on Futurist meals, particularly The Futurist Cookbook, written in 1932 by the founder of the Italian Futurist art movement Filippo Marinetti. Patrons were “exposed to a banquet of both the palate and the mind”[5] that included "aerofood infused with irony, cast-selected dinner jackets, and an iconoclastic rant against the evils of pasta." [6] In 2011 their Tactile Dinner Car combined Futurist gastronomy with the resurgence of urban food cart culture. In this “crazy sociological experiment playing by its own rules” [7] that is “best enjoyed with an adventurous palate and a thorough appreciation for the ridiculous,” [8] theatergoers and bystanders ordered surreal concoctions from a futurist food car reminiscent of designs by Buckminster Fuller [9]
Production History
- October 2005 -- Greenwood Follies and other Old French Plays
- July 2006 -- Desire Caught by the Tail, by Pablo Picasso
- July 2007 -- bobrauschenbergamerica, by Charles Mee
- October 2007 -- Balade Mechanique (story telling machine)
- July 2008 -- Hijos del Limbo, co-production with Las Jamonas
- February 2009 -- My Comic Valentine, co-production with Rotogravure Entertainment
- July 2009 -- A Tactile Dinner
- March 2010 -- t42 (one night performance art piece at the Korean Embassy)
- March 2010 – Aerofood + Plush World
- April 2010 -- Ballade Mechanique 2.0 (commissioned for the Marion Street Garden)
- May 2010 -- Tactile Dinner Big Bear Cafe and Tactile Dinner Long View Gallery
- July 2010-- Handbook for Hosts
- December 2010 -- Walk with Me (an alternative audio walk)
- July 2011 -- Tactile Dinner Car
References
- ^ "Desire’: How Picasso Liberated Paris,” Pamela Squires, Washington Post, July 22, 2006
- ^ http://www.banishedproductions.org/
- ^ “Bounces on the Festival Fairway,” Nelson Pressley, Washington Post, July 23, 2007
- ^ “Romance Ripped from the Comics,” Raymond M. Lane, Washington Post, February 6, 2009
- ^ “A Tactile Dinner: Whimsicality To Go,” Peter Marks, Washington Post, July 14, 2009
- ^ “A Tactile Dinner,” Tim Treanor, DC Theater Scene, July 13, 2009
- ^ “Tactile Dinner Cart,” Jenn Larsen, DC Theater Scene, July 9, 2011
- ^ “Futurism for Foodies,” ArtNet, August 12, 2011
- ^ “Fringe Festival 2011: ‘Tactile Dinner Car,’” Fiona Zublin, Washington Post, July 8, 2011