Over the past eighteen months we've shared fifteen Dining Room Tales performance events in partnership with communities across Victoria's western district, from our rual base at Lismore to Derrinallum, Darlington, Camperdown, Tesbury, Dixie, Tarrington, Skipton, Cobden, Nirranda and Jan Juc. We've also enjoyed some city time, with another half dozen tables set for communities in Melbourne, Berlin, Porto and Lisbon.

Two new Dining Room Tales collaborations have premiered in that time, and now it's time for more.

We've had a wonderful connecting artists to western district communities during residency stays at the farm in Lismore over the last eighteen months, and are preparing to welcome several more in the year ahead. 

Like to help us out? Let's make new work!

ABOUT
A is for Atlas is an independent performing arts company creating socially connective, interdisciplinary contemporary performance works. Our work traverses multi-form practice collaborations, community development practice, collaborative cross-cultural practice and collaborations between arts and non-arts disciplines. Our artists travel the globe and the corners of creative practice to deliver new experiments in performance making. 

Our signature Dining Room Tales is a ‘global-local’ social art practice centred on food, diversity, and the role food-sharing plays in building the spirit of our communities. You are invited to spend an evening around the dinner table and inside the life and practice of an internationally acclaimed artist, as they prepare a communal meal. In between moments of formal and informal performance, you become entangled in the very process of creating an artwork. 

​WHY SUPPORT​
Dining Room Tales is driven by the idea that communities who engage with each other often, and with empathy, are healthier communities. It is a practice of humanity and of art, shaped by a sustainability framework. We emphasise slowness and intimacy to cultivate social resilience. Food, performance and storytelling are used to open space for new thinking and relationship between participants. Critical conversations become possible. About who we are as a society, and the future we approach together.. 

We have been developing and deploying this practice around the world since 2011 (11 original works shared in some 112 performance events with 52 communities across eight countries), growing understandings of small-community activation, the impact of filtering diverse knowledge inputs into slow social settings, and connecting hyper-local action across global distance. 

Donations of $2 or more are tax deductible. Please feel free to contact us to discuss your support. 

PRAISE FOR DINING ROOM TALES...

"A unique contribution to our cultural sector, with lasting impacts on the communities it engages." - Adriano Cortese, Seoul Marginal Theatre Festival/Ranters Theatre

"Suffused with hospitality at every level" - Cameron Woodhead, The Age 

"5 Stars" - Artshub

"The antidote to fear and misinformation and hatred." - Alison Croggon, ABC Arts 

"Nourishment for body and soul." - Weekend Notes 

"Just wonderful. No other words needed. Go." - Audience member

"Top quality socially engaged creative practice." - Jill Morgan AM, Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria