The Supper Room
The Supper Room: Luca Silvestrini’s Protein
The Supper Room was an event model, devised by Artistic Director Kat Bridge, which saw the Supper Room (the original name for the wonderful wood-panelled Minor Hall) at The Borough Hall being used for…supper. And dance.
Co-curated by a different artist or company each time, audiences were invited to join Greenwich Dance for a themed supper and something special. Audience members entered through the rarely seen box office and lobby, and then experienced an event which celebrated its former use.
In this edition, Luca Silvestrini’s Protein and composer Orlando Gough came together to curate an evening of food, stories, songs and dance. It was also part of the research and development phase of Luca’s show exploring our relationship with food which was to become May Contain Food and later a rural touring version called May Contain Food May Contain You.
Performers: Melanie Pappenheim, Jeremy Avis, Donna Lennard, Matt Winston and Sara Black.
“The Supper Room was a truly exciting event to curate and to bring to fruition. It fitted perfectly the research that Orlando Gough and I were doing at the time, a show about food served to a dining audience. It was beautiful and unusual, and so special to travel back to the days when the Minor Hall was the Supper Room. This one off occasion is only one of the many wonderful things we did at and with Greenwich Dance over 25 years of Protein. GD is an integral and significant part of our history, we would not have made it without their generous support and collaborative approach. Even before moving in as a Resident Company in 2012, we felt part of the organisation’s life, attending morning classes, rehearsing, performing, teaching and even storing our sets and costumes there. It’s a beautiful story and I wish to thank all those who made it possible and have been part of it. Happy 30th GD and may you continue to support and develop dance for everyone.”
Luca Silvestrini
Protein were a longstanding Resident Company at Greenwich Dance. As well as researching and rehearsing most of their work in the building, Protein created and previewed Publife (in early 2002), made their large-scale community project Crossroads (as part of Greenwich Dances and GDIF 2011), The Picnic (as part of Big Dance 2012) and presented Border Tales in the Borough Hall in 2015, as part of Greenwich Dances. The company also worked in partnership with GD to deliver a series of three-week intensive projects to Newhaven Pupil Referral Unit, part of the company’s inclusion programme, Real Life Real Dance.
Other artists who were invited to curate Supper Room events included: Luke Pell, Charlotte Spencer Projects and Temujin Gill.
The Picnic. Photo by Chris Nash
