Feminism rules – An Evening of Meat

I went along with some other members of Love Pop Ups London to experience one of The Vaults latest show An Evening of Meat.

The Vaults

If you don’t know much about The Vaults it is a disused railway under the arches of Waterloo Station in London.  The Vaults are the home for immersive theatre and alternative arts. Their mission is to collaborate and conspire, embracing artists from all walks of life to come together and inspire others.

An Evening of Meat at The Vaults

An Evening of Meat is an immersive theatre and dining experience from all-female creative collective, I AM. We’ve all heard the expression ‘she was treated like a piece of meat’ well this show is about showing and exploring the female form, power and strength as we are not all ‘pieces of meat’.  Feminist performers take the artistic show to a new level.

The talented all female performers showcase is a mixture of choreography by creative director Kate March and I AM Concepts team along with immersive elements involving members of the audience.  The whole choreography is matched by the physical endurance of the dancers, music and lighting perfectly.

Stepping inside The Vaults entering into An Evening of Meat was an eye opener. There is a banquet of tables and laying upon them are many corseted woman performers. Once the techno music starts their bodies start to move and sway and a story starts to unfold.

The females movements are strong and powerful but there are vulnerable moments also.  Some moments throughout the show though I could not stop and start to think about animals as some of their moves reminded me in some cases of animals and in how they would react.  Some scenes look as though there was a territorial issue, fights, defence, curiosity and love leading me to think of tigers, dogs, birds and rabbits. I thought that way as the dancers mostly being on all fours and grunting from time to time made me think that way but the dance movements were visually awe inspiring.

All the while, acrobatic dancers with finessed moves writhed around and on our table food was served amongst the evening.

I was a bit concerned that the food would not be great as usually other theatre dining shows I have attended the food has been poor.  However I was highly surprised and the six course dinner did not just look stunning but it also was delicious.  All food was designed by Chavdar Todorov, Steven Estevez and the PopCo team.

The chicken liver cones looked cute like mini ice creams. The chicken flavour was great packed with powerful flavours and very creamy with the savoury cone giving it that extra edge of a crunch texture in your mouth.

The salt baked potato’s even though small they had a powerful taste and the crisp pancetta gave it that extra edge.

All three meat dishes (seared carpaccio of dry-aged beef, braised mutton shoulder and breed pig) even though small looked stunning and all melted in the mouth.

The 70% Guanajo chocolate was amusing served in an ashtray and it looked as though it had been used as an ashtray as well with it’s sesame ash, coconut bacon flakes which was placed on top of the chocolate ganache.  I was unsure how the bacon flakes were going to work with the chocolate dessert but funnily enough it did work.

I am a dessert lover so my best dish was most certainly the Guanajo chocolate and meat wise I would say the mutton shoulder.

Plus with this being an immersive dining show along the way the performers interacted with the audience all throughout such as pouring water into our mouths from a flask or even looking at us curiously hoping for us in turn to react back or in my case passing an apple from her mouth to mine. Again now I am thinking of a pig as pigs love apples.

Want a peek into the world of An Evening of Meat

Verdict

All in all the whole show with it’s ever changing techno up-beat music, lights effects and powerful dance will leave any diner with incredible impressions on your mind and will make you leave thinking that you are strong and powerful. Even though we are female this shows that we should not let people over power us or try to control us in anyway as we are our own spirit.

Want to book

Performances are from 28 March – 2nd June 2018.

To book click here.

 

Thank you to The Vaults for letting me and others from Love Pop Ups London community come along for an An Evening of Meat. This experience was complimentary but all views are my own honest opinion.

Click below to read the blogs and / or reviews from the other community members that joint me. All their views are of their own honest opinion.

An Evening of Meat