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Smoke & Vapour
A work in progress and basked of ideas for the flow and menu of Smoke & Vapour http://fo.am/smoke_vapour
Arrival and descent
Aperitif: Effervescent and crispy
Drink
- Sparkling non-alcoholic drinks: eg. Sparkling Jasmine Tea or Chose (fresh grapefruit juice and tonic water with smoked ice cubes)
- Sparkling lightly alcoholic drinks: eg. lightly fermented infusions, sparkling sake
Food
- Smoked potato skins
- Smoked pistacho bread with carrot with carrot reduction
- Charred peppers in granular dust (smoked dukkah & popping sugar)
- Smoked quail eggs in shell
- (Smoked tempura muscles)
Sounds (pre-recorded, served on the same trays as the food)
- sound of the food
- bubbling
- evaporating
- crunching
- cracking
- …SW soundscape for FOUR channels (four portable
- speakers & four mp3 players NIK PLS CONFIRM that we have access to this)
Place: entrance, in front of the green glass
Posture: standing, walking
Actions: Hand washing and drying on low tables (kneeling), sipping a drink, tasting bite-sized amuses, mingling
Props needed:
- water infused with herbs/oils (thyme, rosemary, bitter mandarin), a few bowls, long cloth and table for hand washing & drying.
- coat hanger
- 4 trays with food, drinks and speakers
- …
Solitary immersion
Isolation Ward: synaesthetic and meditative
Drink
- cedar incense smoke, incense lit before people arrive
- woody essential oil (rosemary, cedar) infused in hot salty water, evaporated over a hot stone (drinking through nose & skin)
- vapour distilled herb water (sage and mint with a few drops of lemon and basil seeds), served before the food in a pipet
Food
- a cold steamed seaweed/samphire starter
- a warm smoked muscle consommé
Sounds (sounds of the water on the rocks, generative granular synthesis, from speakers under or next to chairs, perhaps small, barely audible, invisible live interventions)
- sounds from the source (resembling):
- forest
- coast
- sea
SW - improv based on cross-fade with cobblestone steam sauna sounds NIK - souce sounds played on the same 4 portable speakers and 4 mp3 players as in previous piece. So this would be a separate ID track which can be cued off stage.
Nik & SW: Stage set B = portable speakers on the trays are placed at positions selected for optimim listening by the the 12 separated guests. SW
Place: under the high roof, in front of the metal panel
Posture: sitting on a chair, alone
Actions: Slowing down, listening, tasting, breathing
Props needed:
- 12 chairs
- 4 small speakers from the trays (left on the floor)
- 2 large cobblestones
- 12 small warm round stones
- 2 flasks with hot salty infusions
- 12 pipets
- 12 containers (or a skewers?) for cold starter
- 12 earthen bowls for soup
- hand sanitiser for after the starter (just a few drops)?
- …
Silent convivium
Tavern: dynamic and absorbing
Drink
- 1 beetroot cocktail (with the garden)
- 1 glass of red wine (with the mushrooms)
- water (still/sparkling)
Food (we need to make something the serving and eating of this quite light/etherial, even though ingredients might be stodgy)
- upon arrival smoked tea sorbet
- steam: a garden in the middle: steamed root vegetables layered with gravel and soil in the middle of each table, on plates a small decoration of thinly sliced steamed beetroot, carrot and celery
- steam & smoke: Steamed cheese dumplings with smoked tomato jam and smoked sour cream/butter
- smoke: cedar smoked wild mushroom and seitan parcels (for 2 people), smoked potatoes, arriving under 3 glass jars filled with smoke, 12 plates with tea-steamed spinach 'tower' and a think green line/brush stroke of garden cress & goat cheese sauce
Sounds (pre-recorded and abstracted, from speakers under or next to individual chairs, perhaps small, barely audible, invisible live interventions)
- sounds of transformation
- smoking
- steaming
- cooking/frying
- live improvisation (Stevie)
Place: under low roof, 'screening room
Posture: sitting on chairs in groups of 4 people
Actions: Sharing, listening, tasting, gesturing
Props needed:
- 12 chairs
- 3 islands of 2 tree & leaf tables (6 tables in total)
- 4 surround sound speakers & cabling
- containers (spoons) for sorbet
- 3 glass vases, 3 small shovels and 12 small white plates for the garden
- 12 Topoware plates, cutlery for the mushroom dish, 3 wooden breadboards and 3 smoking bells for potatoes and mushroom parcels
- 2 sets of 12 wine glasses
- 12 serviettes
- 12 water glasses
- …
Sweet emergence
Kitchen table: light, social, colourful
Drink (all depending on the food served)
- japanese green tea (as .jp green teas are first steamed before being rolled, making them more green) - matcha, sencha or sencha with yuzu
- steamed coffee (from mokka coffee cookers or find steamed coffee beans
- Whiskey and cigars cocktail, or smoky Manhattan (a few smoked drinks recipes)
Food
- Smoked cheese platter (mozarella, feta, ash goat cheese, 2 smoked cow cheeses from Cremerie de Linkebeek)
- Steamed chestnut puree with Laphroaig
- Smoked garlic and Lagavullin tiramisu
- Pears steamed in a sweet red wine reduction and orange peel
Petit fours
- Smoked chocolates
- Caramels with smoked salt
Sound (pre-recorded, played and spoken live)
- sound of the kitchen
- pots & pans
- mechanical noises (cutting, slicing, shredding…)
- cook's stories (smoking, steaming, ingredients)
- describing the sounds of steaming & smoking
- at the end, from 'formal stories' become chatter with participants
Place: kitchen table, on our prep and plating table, that is covered with notes, instructions, drawings and stains
Posture: standing around the table
Actions: Observing, reading, tasting, listening (to the inner and outer environment), at the end beginning to chat
Props needed:
- big prep table covered in a writing material (paper of some kind), posca markers
- several small speakers on the prep table (balls from trays), perhaps a few speakers around the room (disembodied sounds)
- desserts in spoons and small containers
- 12 cups for tea/coffee
- 12 glasses for water
- 12 cocktail glasses
- …