Selina Thompson

Presented by The Lowry + Word of Warning

####In Brief
Glitter, chicken legs and a rice pudding piñata… Selina invites you to her own version of a midnight feast — a cross between confessions made over coffee at Weight Watchers, and sloppy drunken story-telling over a 3am kebab. Sitting somewhere between story-telling, stand-up, live art and theatre, Chewing The Fat is a powerful portrayal of how we live with our bodies.

####Venue + Booking Details
Date: Friday 7 November 2014, 8pm
Venue: The Lowry Studio, Pier 8, Salford Quays, M50 3AZ
Tickets: £12/10
Box Office Tel: 0843 208 6000
N.B. the artist workshop on Monday 3 November is now fully booked

####Access Information
The performance lasts approximately 70 minutes with no interval.
Age advisory: 14+

####More
FAT! That’s what I’m making a show about. My fat. Your fat, maybe. Fat. I’ve been fat for a long time now, and I thought I was fat, even when I wasn’t, and as such, I’ve been thinking about fat for even longer. So I made a show about it. Our bodies and egos are fragile, our ways of talking about them inadequate, so I can understand that you might not be up for talking about fat for an hour.

So I’ll make you some promises:
• I promise to tell the truth†;
• I promise to make it funny†;
• I promise you won’t get any mess on your nice clothes†;
• I promise not to talk about anorexia, bulimia, fat acceptance, the beauty myth, feminism, the fashion industry, weight loss, the diet industry, discrepancies between the European ideal of beauty and the Afro-Carribbean ideal of beauty, girls being bitchy to other girls, how men feel about their body, about how you should feel about your body†;
• I promise that your body is a Wonderland (copyright John Mayer) and so is mine†.
† I can’t guarantee that any of these promises will be kept.
p.s. Bring snacks.

Selina invites you to her own version of a midnight feast: somewhere between confessions made over coffee at Weight Watchers, and sloppy drunken story-telling over a 3am kebab. She infuses discussion of complex, life-long issues with weight with laughter, popping balloons and a healthy dose of rice pudding to result in something truly vibrant. Sitting somewhere between story-telling, stand-up, live art and theatre, Chewing The Fat is a powerful and extremely open portrayal of how we live with our bodies, on both the days when they are beautiful, and the days when they are a burden.

####Who is she?
An artist + performer based in Leeds, Selina’s work is playful, participatory and intimate — focused on the politics of identity and how this defines our bodies, lives and environments. She has made work for pubs, cafes, hairdressers, toilets, and sometimes even galleries and theatres, including SPILL Festival of Performance, The National Theatre Studio, The Birmingham REP, East Street Arts and the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

Over the past couple of years she’s been developing a body of works, Edible Women, exploring the fat body, dieting, control around food, how much of a mess she can get away with creating with an audience, and a taste for excess; so far she has made a theatre show, built a dress out of cake, spent quite a lot of time listening to people confess their food sins and shared many of her own…

####What people have said about her

5* Selina Thompson has a very special gift… She is one of the warmest, most engaging performers you might ever hope to see on stage.
Nick Ahad, The Yorkshire Post
4* … a credible and slick piece of work, by turns disconcerting and uplifting.
Paul Couch, The Public Reviews

####Workshop: That’s what you get for being food.

Selina is hosting a workshop (now fully booked) in the STUN Studio at Z-arts on Monday 3 November from 6pm; in her own words, this is what it’s all about:

I’m a firm believer that a performance with food in it makes the brain and the heart salivate just as much as the mouth. So for this workshop, I want to spend a little time exploring how our physical and sensory responses to food can be used to transform food into a visceral, powerful way of connecting with a peckish audience.

We’ll be working with stolen words, our autobiographies and of course — food! — to create some positively delicious moments of performance.

This workshop is for artists and students, but more than anything, it’s for people that love food/cooking/eating/making a mess. Come armed with a strong anecdote — a story you love telling — and a food that you would like to use to tell it. Be as abstract or literal as you like, and bring as little or as much of that food as you need. See you soon!

####Credits
Chewing The Fat supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England; originally developed with support from Theatre in the Mill (Bradford), ARC (Stockton) + West Yorkshire Playhouse (Leeds). Workshop also supported by hÅb + STUN as part of Divergency, supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

####Websites
www.selinathompson.co.uk ¦ @SelinaNThompson