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<\/a>\u201cAs the title suggests, it\u2019s about everyday life and what\u2019s happening in everyday life and packing it with potential for improvisational play,\u201d says Navab. \u201cThat means there\u2019s a intersection where sometimes everyday life becomes playful, and then we can suddenly transform it from its mundaneness and improvise new ways of being and living.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Practices of Everyday Life: Cooking<\/i>, Navab enlisted the help of professional dancer and chef Tony Chong, who, according to Navab, seamlessly brought together his dancing ability and his cooking skills into a show that enchants the audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we approached Tony, he said, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ve always wanted to put these disciplines together.\u2019 What this allowed was to ask Tony to basically forget about dancing at first, and we got him to chop for hours to see where things could become playful. That\u2019s the energy of the show. The playfulness is the craziness of the rituals; the insanities that might be in the action don\u2019t come from the stage but from everyday action. Tony has been really great at being able to control these boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n
With routine practices like cooking, it can become hard to produce a show that doesn\u2019t seem staged or scripted. Plus, simple things like chopping, boiling, and seasoning can become robotic actions and can seem boring to some. Navab feels that Chong brings these actions to life and grabs the audience\u2019s attention well.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the audience, you don\u2019t feel like he is performing playfulness,\u201d says Navab. \u201cAs soon as you sense someone is performing playfulness, it feels staged. At some point Tony becomes so playful that he almost becomes violent, insane, or ritualistic. Tony\u2019s really able to go into that zone and to lose it. His sense of timing is amazing; I\u2019ve never seen anyone that can do something so perfectly on the first attempt.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the performance, Chong prepares a dish that the audience can come and taste after it\u2019s finished. As with most cooking, senses play a significant role; Navab says that one second the audience will just be sitting there and the next they\u2019re hit with the overpowering smell of ingredients, which is all timed with the show itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cTony is actually making a dish that the audience then rushes onstage to consume,\u201d says Navab. \u201cThe multisensory aspects of the show are huge. You have this strong point in the piece where you have garlic and onion and a type of sauce that hits the audience in a strong way. They\u2019ve been watching for about 40 minutes and then suddenly they\u2019re hit with this strong, familiar, delicious smell. This is all timed so that the sounds and the visuals that go with it really immerse you into this environment.\u201d<\/p>\n