Last Thursday, our Bossche community of the project Performing Gender – Dancing in your shoes travelled to partner Yorkshire Dance in Leeds. For the first time they performed their performance about their former Dutch Indies and Moluccan roots they made in collaboration with choreographer Jija Sohn. 

In this intimate setting, But First, We are Going to Eat made a strong impression on the audience. About 70 people listened full focus to the stories about origin, identity, and family while at the same time the performers cooked Soto Ajam, an Indonesian chicken soup. Because there must be food. Sharing a meal together is a strong tradition within the community and showed to be a way of connecting, sharing experiences and searching for similarities during the creation of the performance. 

At the end of the performance, soup was served to the audience to make them a part of this tradition. This also showed the value of a conversation during a cup of comfort food. 

We are extremely proud of the performers and co-creators - June Lisapaly, Frank de Graaff, Aantje Wichers, Isabelle Bovenkerk, Loek Middel, Margy van Gerven, Sylvy van Bochove en Wies de Groot - en mogelijkmakers Jija Sohn en Burkhard Körner! 

The performance will be performed twice during Boulevard. The Dutch version of But First, We are Going to Eat will be performed at Sunday the 6th of August. On Monday the 7th of August an English version will be performed. 

Besides performing their own performance, the group visited performances by the two other participating communities Leeds and Ljubljana and participated in workshops of the Encounters Festival organised by Yorkshire Dance. 

But First, We are Going to Eat is a production by Theaterfestival Boulevard ‘s - Hertogenbosch. Theaterfestival Boulevard is based in the Netherlands and is a partner in the project Performing Gender - Dancing in your shoes. This project focuses on connecting dance to intersecting identities, working with dancers and local communities from eight different European countries. 

Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.