Some experiences transport you far without taking you anywhere. Last night I found myself far from the Princeton campus in…Italy? The future? My Italian professor was hosting a futurist conference for the weekend, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of futurism, and 40 or so Italians (including one of my favorite professors from my Italian summer class in 2008) descended upon Princeton’s campus for the weekend of talks and performances. I was invited to the dinner on Saturday night, along with the rest of my Italian class, and it was certainly surreal. We gathered in the Chancellor Green rotunda, a hexagonal room with stained glass windows, and one of my favorites on campus. The evening began with student performances–cacaphonic dialogues and a destruction of place settings which turned into spontaneous ballroom dancing (this was all just as confusing as it sounds).
impressive meat sculpture
dessert table: aerocookies and fragolamammelle
When dinner began we found all of our food arranged in artistic, amusing, and presumably futuristic manner. Appetizers included crackers, olives, fig, gelatin, peppers, and meat carved into letters. Next the main course: veggie pastries (surrounded on the table with computer parts, pills filled with cinnamon, and pop rocks), rice, risotto, “rice oranges”, and a meat sculpture. Dessert: rice pudding, cream puffs with purple filling, airplane cookies, and fragolamamelle (yes, pink breasts…made of cheesecake and actually delicious).
futurist appetizer plate
Following dinner, Italian mimes (brought in for a silent performance of a cookbook, which I regretfully missed, the evening before) engaged the audience in one last “futuristic performance.” Blindfolded, we wore capes of various materials, and had to locate the other person in the room wearing the same type of fabric and begin dancing. Luckily, I understood the Italian or I probably would have been completely lost by this part.
The performances and ballroom dancing over, the presence of an iPod caused the black tie dinner party to degenerate into a 1980s wedding reception, as the guests of all ages excitedly danced the night away to “YMCA,” “Dancing Queen,” “Brown-Eyed Girl,” and other classics. After all this, I’m still slightly unclear as to what futurism actually is…aside from a somewhat surreal Italian artistic movement. But I got to dance to “Build Me Up Buttercup” in an academic building, so it was a Saturday night well-spent.