In the Name of a Dinner

In the Name of a Dinner is a socially engaged theatre work specially created by Xiao Ke × Zi Han for COART 2014. The artists invited friends met in Lijiang to gather in the name of dinner and share stories about life, art, and personal experience. Open in form, the work mixes performance with lived reality: art comes from life and disappears into life.

The work resembles a joyful dinner party. People eat, sing, and talk together. Through live electronic music and a deliberately designed theatrical time structure, Xiao Ke and Zi Han turn an apparently absurd dinner into a contemporary theatrical event. Improvised dance by Xiao Ke and a Japanese artist, Naxi singing by He Yao Xing, poetry by Zhao Ye, and Zi Han’s sports-commentary-style deconstruction of Xiao Ke’s dance are mixed with children playing, animals passing through, collective drinking, and the flower seller Xiao Pang selling roses in the event.

During the 60-minute work, everyone at the table suddenly freezes for three minutes as two television screens play videos created by Zi Han. It is like a dream suddenly paused: the audience is returned to a rational reality and a quiet sadness appears. After three minutes, everything returns to the dinner party. This stillness opens a space to reflect on life and performance, moving toward an open social theatre.