Food For Thought, And Dance

There is perhaps no greater connection than we feel to the world than through food. And dance is no different. Chefs are like choreographers, designing elements to mingle and play in conceptual arrangements on the plate. A full meal, thus tells a story from beginning to end, with ups and downs and surprises that help us learn something about ourselves or our world. This is what our annual fundraiser has sought to do these past three years.

Ballet Memphis will serve up its annual fundraiser, Connections: Food, on Saturday, October 18th at BRIDGES Inc., 477 N. 5th Street. The event begins at 7 p.m. Connections: Food, now in its fourth year, will feature live music, an expanded venue and celebrity chef Scott Peacock, named 2007 “Best Chef in the Southeast” by the James Beard Foundation and chef-owner of the celebrated Watershed restaurant in Decatur, Ga.

Each food course in Connections: Food will be paired with an original work by four choreographers that tells a story of the dish: Mark Godden, Camille A. Brown and Ballet Memphis’ own Jesus Pacheco and Jane Hope Rehm.

The First Course, Comedie of Taste by Jesus Pacheco, is set to music by Brahms Clarinet Quintet in B, Mozart Piano Concerto, and is paired with food by Karen Blockman Carrier and Tim Barker. The appetizer course is a variety of small plates which makes it difficult to choose of what to partake, just as the dancers dibble in dabble in relationships and jockeying for position on the arm of another partygoer.

The Second Course, Finding the Redd by Jane Hope Rehm is set to music by Beirut and is paired with food by Johnny Kirk of Stella restaurant. This second course is a fish course, salmon, and the dancers in heat-sensitive and color-changing suits "swim upstream" in search of their perfect mate.

The Main Course, Orange Bourbon Glaze by Mark Godden, is set to musical excerpts from Slavic Dances by Antonín Dvorak and "Tower of Song" by Leonard Cohen. The food for this course is composed by Jose Guttierez of Encore restaurant and consists of a pork tenderloin in, as I'm sure you can guess, an orange bourbon glaze. The work is gutteral and naked, and in the same sense fulfilling and rich, just as a main course should be.

For Dessert we feature Un Festin Divin by Camille Brown, set to original music composed and performed by Kirk Clayton and paired with food by Martha Hall Foose of Viking Cooking School. Her full use of the company on stage mirrors the plate which is served with choices of sauces and garnish - a full array of flavors.

With food for thought, we hope to see you there.