At
6pm on Jan. 27, a dozen shy but excited fifth and sixth graders filed into the
Nuba Restaurant at the Waldorf Hotel. Donned with notepads, they sipped the unusual
“cukewater” – the nickname they had chosen for the cucumber-flavoured water –
and began their sincere and merciless reviews of the restaurant.
These
students from Bridgeview Elementary School in Surrey took part in an event
called Eat the Street, organized by Mammalian Diving Reflex and presented by
the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in Vancouver. From Jan. 5 to
Feb. 4, the public was invited to sit, eat, and share dinner conversation with
the children at various restaurants across Vancouver. For the rest of the
evening, the restaurant would be under the watchful eye of these juvenile
critics; everything from the urinals and soap dispensers, to the decor and
cutlery. Darren O’Donnell, Artistic and Research Director of Mammalian Diving
Reflex, says that the Eat the Street event is just one of many of the
performances and social experiments that the company has created.
O’Donnell
explains that the idea for the event spurred from the need to address the
growing gap between the worlds of adults and children: “At this point in
history, for whatever reason, and I have a few ideas as to why this may be,
adults and children who don’t know each other have no way to spend any time
with each other,” he explains. “The way adults and children spend time together
is under really, really strict institutional situations. So what this is trying
to do is to induce an encounter between young people and adults that is a
little off the chart.”
The
Mammalian Diving Reflex was originally founded as a theatre company in 1993 and
evolved into what they are today. They hold community events, theatre-based
performances, and participatory experiences similar to Eat the Street. The
first event of this kind, called Haircuts by Children, was very much like the
title indicates: a performance where children worked in a salon and were paid
to cut the hair of any willing participant. The event took place in several
different cities internationally, including Vancouver, New York, and Bologna,
Italy. It was a huge hit and the demand for more events of this interactive style
exploded.
O’Donnell
explains that the idea behind this format was to integrate the performance with
the audience: “I don’t like writing scripts anymore,” he says. “The audience
over there, the actor over there, repeating lines that they have said a million
times; [it’s more about] actually creating encounters between people.”
The
company looks to integrate all levels of the community. For example, according
to Statistics Canada, 32 per cent of seniors over the age of 85 live in
institutional residency, and 34 per cent live alone. The company works to
change these realities and looks towards a better future or a “new world,”
explains O’Donnell, “where people might be more kind to each other, where
income and resources might be a little more equitably distributed … where kids
are allowed in more places, where old people aren’t shunted off to old folks
homes.”
In
another effort to breakdown these age-related barriers, the company is putting
on an event entitled The Best Sex I’ve Ever Had where a number of older people
get together to discuss their sexual experiences and invite the public to join
them in the discussions.
Whether
through the conduit of children or seniors, haircuts or dinners, Mammalian
Diving Reflex creates a new arena for people to interact with and better
understand their fellow community members.
For
Eat the Street, eight different restaurants, including Calabash Bistro,
Chambar, and The Old Spaghetti Factory opened their arms to the event, the
children, and their seriously honest reviews. The finale of the event took
place with a ceremony in which a slew of different awards were presented. The
awards included “Most Comfy Seats”; “Best Smelling Washroom”; “Server That Looks
Most Like A Child”; and numerous more. The “Best of the Best” and overall
winner was Chill Winston, who also swept up “Most Luxurious Furniture”; “Nicest
Host”; “Best Flamb.”; “Whitest Chef Jacket”; and “Best Dessert”.
Despite
the grandiose award ceremonies, Eat the Street was about much more than just
food. reviews. The Mammalian Diving Company places people in situations outside
of the norm and creates an opportunity for social encounters that would
otherwise not have occurred. Through the use of comedy, real-time interactions,
and, in the case of Eat the Street, the obscure placement of children in
unexpected roles, the company forces participants to rethink the social sphere.
//Leanne Kriz, writer
//Graphics by Britta Bacchus
//Leanne Kriz, writer
//Graphics by Britta Bacchus
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