A IS for Atlas continues its journey across the Western District, bringing the inimitable Chinese-Australian musician and composer Wang Zheng-Ting to the Hamilton area for the first time with his much-loved Dining Room Tales Work Phoenix.

Originally from Shanghai, Wang Zheng-Ting is a master of the traditional Chinese instrument, the Sheng.

Thought to be the inspiration for the western piano accordion, this ‘Chinese mouth organ’ is a true musical phoenix.

Ting’s ‘Phoenix’ is very personal look at three decades building a new life in Australia, told through magical music, storytelling and delicious food from Shanghai to Sichuan.

Ting graduated from Shanghai Music Conservatory and completed a MA at Monash University and a PhD in Ethnomusicology at the University of Melbourne on the history of Chinese Performing Arts in Australia.

He is currently the coordinator of Chinese Instrumental Music at the University of Melbourne.

People are invited to an evening of magical music, intimate storytelling, sumptuous food and nourishing community connection, amid the beautiful vines at the foot of Mount Pierrepoint.

Dining Room Tales is the long-term global performance project led by Lismore-based artist Xan Colman, where audiences are invited to spend an evening around the dining table, hosted by an intriguing and internationally acclaimed artist.

The host artist shares pieces of their life, interests and humanity as they prepare a communal meal for the audience to share in between moments of formal and informal performance.

Dining Room Tales works have been performed in London, Hong Kong, São Paulo, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Yokohama, Belo Horizonte, Osaka and across Australia with some 104 performances to date.

Tables of food have held the most wondrous stories of humankind - stories of celebration and conflict, of joy and tribulation, of colourful pasts, confounding presents, uncertain futures.

Creator of Dining Room Tales and Artistic director of contemporary performance company A is for Atlas, Xan Colman, said 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. The performances are highly crafted, but also led by the audience through gentle participation,” he said.

“Dining Room Tales combine life and art through sharing and generosity. Along the way, the audience is entangled in the very process of creating an artwork.

“Guests to Dining Room Tales typically talk about the great food they have been exposed to and the wonderful stories that they have heard from these diverse artists who are presenting these works.

“Dining room tales is all about creating opportunities through world class art practice for people to engage in very simple acts of humanity with each other.

 “We don’t have to be on a stage of a performing arts centre in London with 3000 people to have a fantastic art experience, we can have it with 10 people in a room and when we do it with 10 people, we also get up close and personal.

“We get to have conversations; we get to breathe each other’s stories and humanity. Something about that is missing in our contemporary culture a bit.”

Since 2011, 10 original Dining Room Tales works have been presented 101 times in 43 locations across seven countries.

According to audience survey data from 52 respondents at four performances in 2022, audiences are having very positive experiences at Dining Room Tales, with the vast majority (92 per cent) saying it was excellent.

When asked the best part about Dining Room Tales, survey respondents used words like ‘connection’, ‘unique’, ‘emotional’ and ‘beautiful’, and most were not able to suggest any areas of improvement.

For some respondents, attending Dining Room Tales enabled them to reflect on their own lives, experience something new or connect with different parts of the community.

Almost a third of 2022 survey respondents had travelled to the event from out of town, with one in three of them visiting the area for the first time, suggesting that Dining Room Tales has the potential to build visitation to regional areas.

In 2023, A is for Atlas is working with research agency Patternmakers to evaluate Dining Room Tales and explore its social impact.

A is for Atlas conducted a survey with Culture Counts following three performances of Dining Room Tales in October 2022.

41 people completed this survey - a duplicate of the survey, sent to attendees of one performance in December 2022, gained 11 more responses.

Starting in 2011 and created by contemporary performance company A is for Atlas, Dining Room Tales is a social art practice which invites audiences to share time, food and conversation with an internationally acclaimed artist and other members of the community.

These interdisciplinary events contain a mixture of formal and informal performance and combine food, performance and storytelling.

They have been presented with a range of partners such as venues, festivals and funders including Casula Powerhouse Arts, Melbourne International Jazz Festival and the Regional Arts Fund.