2021/22:
Little Chef B
Little Chef B (provisional title) is a multilingual show for children about cooking and identity. It is a motivational story that explores the experience of displacement in a way that is inspiring and empowering for children.
Little Chef B celebrates diversity by talking about the experience of people who are born in a country different from their parents’ and grow up in multilingual households. In this context, food is an element of connection across cultures.
“When I was 6 years old, I stopped eating...”
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Learning later to speak but understanding three languages. Learning later to cook but cooking food from three different traditions. Learning later to belong but belonging everywhere.
The main character of this story is B, a girl with mixed origins: her mother from France, her granddad from Singapore, and she grew up in London. When she was 6 years old, B. stopped eating. It felt like everything had the same flavour, the same smell; a symbol of her difficulty to find her identity and value each culture that was part of her. Her family will help her find herself by teaching her to cook traditional dishes of her heritage.
Little Chef B explores the racial dysphoria of looking and feeling like an experimental dish: a burrata dumpling, a tofu omelette, fish and shrimp chips. It encourages children to find and use their strengths, their creativity and their resilience to make the world a more colourful and tasteful place.
Credits
Devised by Multicultural Applied Theatre Society (script written by Mana Katsuno)
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Thanks to the support of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
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Project Artistic Director: Chiara Virgilio
Voice Coach: Claudia Novati
Social Media Manager: Arianna Lanfranconi
Movement Director: Kiren Virdee
Project Consultant: Valentina Rosati
Performed by: Aaron Cheang, Mana Katsuno, Anouk Kouka Salters, Kiren Virdee
The show will be ready to be performed in April 2022.