“This is Me Eating___”: Challenging Us to Ponder Our Relationship to Food

The womxn leading Et Alia Theater are to watch out for. They are planning to involve the world in their next project and are not holding back because of the pandemic.

Et Alia Theater is an artistic organization founded and led by international womxn. They strive to create an accepting community that inspires artists to create beyond their comfort zones and collide with an array of international voices which may be culturally unfamiliar. Et Alia is Latin for ‘And Other’: inspired to create Art for the other, by the other, and about the other.

The COVID-19 lockdown has had a considerable impact on the Art industry. Especially young theater companies are struggling. Et Alia is focused on continuing to create Art that speaks to their mission. “We actually wish to make our audiences concentrate on other aspects of life right now that are not pandemic related, such as ‘elephant-in-the-room’ topics that everyone can now reflect on in the comfort of the pause the world is currently in,” says Associate Producer Deniz Bulat.

Giorgia Valenti in ‘This is Me Eating My Eating Disorder’

This is the purpose behind ‘This is Me Eating___’, a concept by the young Italian actor Giorgia Valenti (Co-Artistic Director) and developed by all the members of Et Alia Theater. “We are very excited to start this project, we have never done anything like this before. The reason I chased this idea is because I believe in the power of telling one’s own story with the aim of making the audience feel like they are not alone,” says Valenti. “Eating is a very delicate topic in everybody’s life, especially in the current culture. Everyone has different relationships to food and to their body and that is influenced by society or the communities they live in.”

Associate Producer Luísa Galatti from Brazil says, “I am so happy that the project is taking off, and people at home are invested in joining us.” Indeed, ‘This is Me Eating___’ has received a warm response, especially from Brazil, with episodes such as ‘This is Me Eating My Anxiety’ and ‘This is Me Eating Water’. Co-Artistic Director Ana Moioli points out that the wonderful aspects of the project are that there are people interested from all over the world, Austria, Italy and the US, and that it’s not just artists who feel encouraged to join, but many other people from different fields are taking the time to reflect on what they could metaphorically ‘eat’.

Ana Moioli in ‘This is Me Eating My Taste Buddies’

The project has been successful in creating open and useful conversations with Et Alia Theater’s audience. Maria Müller (Co-Artistic Director) shares that, “My own family and friends have opened up to me in response to the episodes of the project; people I would have never imagined are now texting me thanking me for being so honest and open and for saying things they have never had the courage to say themselves. It’s absolutely wonderful”.

‘This is Me Eating___’ is a well thought-out project and Et Alia Theater definitely did a good job in making it inclusive of all types of people experiencing all kinds of relationships to food. The variety of the episodes is a perfect parallel to how the womxn involved in creating Art think and move about the world. “We are really excited for what is to come and to see who else is going to support us in this movement!” (Isabella Uzcátegui, Associate Artist).