Dining out as a performative event

Abstract

Public events are scripted, staged and choreographed. Dining out is a perception-affect experience, but it is rare that the experience becomes a performative event in which guests are actors in the scene. The Madeleine’s Food Theatre in Copenhagen created a performative dining-out experience where guests did not have knowledge of the script, stage or choreography beforehand. When people became part of making a space into an event, they entered into unimaginable atmospheres and moods. The article explores the dining experience at Madeleine’s Food Theatre as a collage of body-mind impressions affected by different kinds of forces of presence.