thalia hoffman film art

בית הבליעה ( Beit Ha’Blia’a, Gullet//Chamber)

2014 - 2016

Created by: Thalia Hoffman, Ofri Omer, Ayelet Halpern, Maya Elran

A dinner/performance created as the opening night of the A-Genre Festival in Tmuna Theatre. In 2014 the festival dealt with the word 'Occupation' (in Hebrew 'Kibbush'- כיבוש), and we created a 16 course meal of fermented (in Hebrew 'Kavush' - כבוש) dishes - Vegetables, fish and meat. (In Hebrew the two words use the same root of letters.). This year (2015) the festival dealt with War (and peace) and the performance dinner was its closing event.

The theatre stage turned for one evening into a dinning space filled with a ton of sea salt and the audience became guests at the dinner party performance. Each of the 16 dishes was in a different state of fermentation, and was served in a unique way.  Along side the dinner/performance presented stories about the history of fermentation, myth that are told upon fermentation and salt and the biological process that happens when a fresh ingredient is fermented.

Fermenting food marks the survival instinct of human beings parallel to the forceful control one need to apply to fulfill this instinct. In addition fermentations shows the deep desires of people for ownership and eternity, but their desire requires salt - one of the most reciprocal elements in nature. Salt is mutually needed to allow the body to live, but it is as well one of the elements which might cause a person his death, all depending on the amount of it that is used.

http://www.kibbush.com/beitBliaa.html

http://warandpeace.co.il/

Participants: Carmel Bar, Dorit Avnet, Einav Rosolio, Galit Criden, Linoy Albacher, Mayya Arbel, Michal ben Yehuda, Michal Igell, Shaul Froynd