Perth Weekly Vol 2, Issue 41 Nov 1999

 

Artand food became one at Chan’s Gourmet Delicatessen and Cafe when the organisersof the fourth annual City of Perth Awesome International Arts Festival for Young People asked proprietorsDaniel Chan and Phil Walker to create a menu for the launch of the festivalthat reflected the six main acts in this year’s program.

The festival takes over the cityfrom November 7 to 14, presenting professional contemporary arts experiencesfor children and young people and giving them the opportunity to discover theirown creativity and what makes art.

Each course of the launch menu, and each act on the program were themselves introducedby an act, beginning with a French waiter handing out some very colourfulballoons and introducing coquecigrues.

This street theatre performancefrom French theatre company Picto Facto involves five strange creatures thathop, have wheels and inflatable bodies, laugh in funny little voices and playpeculiar instruments.

Depicting these funny creatureswas a salad topped with fried tofu, slit and filled with carrots and beanshoots and nyo nya satay sauce.

Daniel says he chose tofu —which swells when fried — to represent the five large inflatable creatures inthe show, and the nyo nya sauce because it was both sweet and spicy and alittle unexpected, like the show itself.

The second course and act, Golden Gloves, was introduced bywhat at first glance you'd have sworn was a statue.

Golden Gloves, from South Africa, tells of the frustrations ofgraduates trying to find a job. Daniel came up with a sweet marinated chickendrumstick cut to look like a boxing glove when cooked, served in anAmerican-style takeaway box.

“You have to look for it, youhave to open the box, just as you have to open doors to get to where you wantto be,” he says.

A gothic poem was read tointroduceSleigh Bells and Whispers, aperformance by local amateur actors Connor Beaver, Emma Mildem and KesterSappho-Colledge, who lift the words of author Edgar Allan Poe from the page tothe stage with shadow puppetry, comic characters and evocative music.

Daniel’s match for that wassushi rolls filled with preserved chinese vegetables, the black wrappingrepresenting the gothic nature of the poetry, and the white of the ricereflecting the winter theme of the act.

Itwas served in a large bamboo steamer, sitting on top of a container of dry ice,for that winter feel.

An original contemporary danceadaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin,the story of a funny little man and his ability to spin straw into gold,inspired Daniel to create a dish with shitake mushroom for the flavour and astraw mushroom and golden needle mushrooms served in a golden wire scoop torepresent the women who finds herself caught in Rumpelstiltskin's trap.

Four young breakdancersintroduced Tracking Time— in which four characters of diffërent class andculture stumble randomly upon each other, each in crisis and each trying to gethome. Four very different ingredients — squid ink andsaffron fettuccini topped with smoked salmon and a spring onion — were served onrectangular stainless steel plates. reflecting the industrial look ofthe show which will he peformed at Perth TrainStation.

Comedy trio Tripod takesaudiences into the lives of Scod, Yon and Gatesy — three skinny, sell- effacing,funloving lads known for their brightly-coloured, superhero influencedjumpsuits and friendly, funky approach. Daniel introduced them with dessert,which was hidden in what looked to be a table decoration of banana plant leavesand raw legumes.

» Back to article index