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The Stinking Nose: A Dinner

  • The Invisible Dog Art Center 51 Bergen Street Brooklyn, NY, 11201 United States (map)

The Invisible Dog Art Center is pleased to invite you for a unique performance dinner at la Salle A Manger imagined by Brandon Woolf, Matt Korahais, Leonie Bell, and Lucien Zayan.


Dating back to 14th-century Europe (especially Germany), garlic has been a metonym for the Jew. The Foetor Judaicus (stink of the Jew) is the subject of many a text, image, song, and plaster-piggy-bank (really!). Indeed, in our only slightly hyperbolic estimation, Garlic-Semitism defines much of the history of German-Jewish relations. Years before the first “ethnic” rhinoplasty, 19th-century German-Jews banished garlic from their diets and their cookbooks to deodorize, de-culturate, and white-wash their identities. The Nazis minted anti-Garlic pins early on; and widespread garlic-aversion persists throughout Germany today – though it has lost its (conscious) political edge. If one digs deeper, however, we find that Jews have also mobilized garlic as a tool to topple Teutonic-Christian authority. Not only in their imaginations and marinara sauces (though there too for sure), but also in the complicated histories of vampire lore, Talmudic debate, folkloric fable, and many a Bubbe’s coveted recipe.

Please join us for a performative dinner as we harness the spirit of Alice Waters and Les Blank to celebrate and interrogate the stinking rose in its many varietals and to collaboratively ask pressing questions about how the physiology of smell and taste relates to our memories, our histories, our identities, and to different forms of bigotry. 

Co-Creators: Brandon Woolf, Matt Korahais, Leonie Bell
Chef: Lucien Zayan


Brandon Woolf is an interdisciplinary theater maker. Over the past decade, he co-founded three public performance ensembles – UC Movement for Efficient Privatization (UCMeP), Shakespeare im Park Berlin, and Culinary Theater. Brandon has recently presented work at 14th Street Y, Fulton Center, Target Margin Theater, Drama League, NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center, Kennedy Center, and a USPS mailbox on Prospect Park West. He is also a clinical associate professor of theater at New York University, where he directs the Program in Dramatic Literature. www.brandonwoolfperformance.com

Leonie Bell is a German-American theater artist and performer from Berlin, based in New York. She produces much of her work as her free-form theater company LOCAL GRANDMA. In NYC, she has presented work at Target Margin Theater, Performance Space NY, BAM, The Whitney Museum, The Brick, Center for Performance Research, and other venues. Recent: Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship, Mabou Mines Resident-Artist-Program, and BAX Upstart Program. www.leoniebell.org & www.localgrandma.org

Matt Korahais is a performer, playwright, photographer and teacher in Brooklyn, New York.  Past collaborations include work with Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Pedro Reyes & Meghan Finn, Richard Maxwell & Sarah Benson, Kate Benson & Jessica Almasy, Joey Hauk Weiss, The Jackson Pollock Bar, Sarah Delappe, Erin Courtney, Kristin Worrall, Mia Rovegno and many others. 

Lucien Zayan is the founder and director at The Invisible Dog Art Center and chef at la Salle A Manger (SAM)

Photo by Matt Korahais


Admission
Donation $50
By invitation only. Dinner is sold out

Opening Reception
Tuesday March 28, 2023
7pm sharp

Location
la Salle A Manger (SAM)

Later Event: April 21
Sabbath Queen 5783