Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 10:11:00 -0400 (EDT) From: Dong-shin Chang Dong-shin Chang Building Community - The Spaghetti Dinner My paper focuses on a monthly event, the Spaghetti Dinner, currently held by the Great Small Works at PS122. In this event, physical food, usually spaghetti, combines with soul food, performances, as an established format since its inception. Therefore, I try to examine the conceptual invention, the structuring of program, the connection between food and performance, and the overall sensational experience created in Spaghetti Dinner. After my research, two points stand out that could characterize this event: one is the influence of Bread and Puppet Theatre; the other is the community Spaghetti Dinner has been building up for twenty years. The influence of B&P Theatre comes from the founders and succeeding practitioners of Spaghetti Dinner. They all have been involved in B&P Theatre to a certain extent. The founders of Spaghetti Dinner are members of B&P Theatre who live in New York City. In 1979, they felt the need to have a performance space and performances in the city other than in Vermont's rural countryside where B&P Theatre resided. They rented a storefront on Ninth Street and began to do Spaghetti Dinner. The earliest program consisted of garlic spaghetti and puppet shows, which had some residual influence of B&P Theatre. On the one hand, they performed puppet shows but did not use the style of giant puppets in B&P Theatre. On the other hand, they offered food during the performance like what B&P Theatre did, but spaghetti was a real, substantial meal other than the symbolic sharing of bread in B&P Theatre. Over the years, practitioners of Spaghetti dinner have kept this basic format of structuring the program. Moreover, the program has more elaborated in recent years, containing varieties of performances not limited to puppet shows. Food offerings have extended from spaghetti to rice and beans, potato pancakes, etc., in order to link to festival celebrations. The connection between food and performance holds on to the belief of Peter Schumann, leader of B&P Theatre, that theatre is a necessity, and theatre is meant for the skin; bread is meant for the stomach. At the same time, the connection develops more tightly as the practitioners of Spaghetti Dinner structure the program according to seasonal or festival themes. The second point that distinguishes Spaghetti Dinner from other theater performances is the community this event has been building up. Community is defined as what sociologist Worsley says that community as "locality," "a network of interrelationships," and "a specific kind of interrelationships." I perceive the way Spaghetti Dinner builds up a community derives from the structure and the content of the program. People who come to Spaghetti Dinner expect to have a hot meal, several pieces of performances, and even relaxation in dancing. This overall experience differs from that of other theater performances. It is a fact that some people have attended Spaghetti for so many years that they have become friends of the performers and some audience members. The community in Spaghetti Dinner is a gastronomic community because people really want to eat the spaghetti and they come back for it. It is also a social community because during the process of commensality, food sharing, people have and chance of socializing, getting to know each other. It is an artistic community, too. People enjoy the performances that address social, political, personal issues and they expect to see creative artistic inventions. In addition, the community has evolved from more of a local community to an inter-relational community. In the early years, Spaghetti dinner appealed to the local community but the intimate relationship broke up in 1983 when members of Spaghetti Dinner were evicted from the storefront because of gentrification. When Spaghetti Dinner moved to PS122 in 1986, it drew its audience from other places. The community, consequently, emphasizes more on the interrelationships rather than locality. The structure of this paper follows the time sequence of one Spaghetti Dinner, March 31 1998. Through a time sequence, I present its history and analyze its evolution based on my participation, observations, and personal interviews. I conclude that the concept of community or the object of communal union seems to take form in or dominate Spaghetti Dinner. Through food and performance, Spaghetti Dinner has built up a gastronomic, social, and artistic community. The feeling of belonging, of being in an intimate community, sustains the continuation of this event.