Anyone who has spent time in a kitchen knows movement is involved in preparing food. Chopping, lifting, kneading – even the odd hip shake – are all parts of cooking and baking.
Local contemporary dancer and choreographer Alexandra Elliott and dozens of staff members from St. Boniface Hospital’s Patient Food Services Kitchen brought such movement to the forefront with the Hospital Kitchen Project.
hannah_g, curator of the on-site Galerie Buhler Gallery, approached Elliott with the idea of the contemporary dance and film project almost a year ago. She and Carla Williams, Manager of Food Services, invited Elliott to observe activity over several months in the Hospital Kitchen, where staff prepare hundreds of nutritious meals from scratch, 365 days a year.
“As soon as I went downstairs into the Kitchen back in January, immediately I was seeing dance,” remembered Elliott. “I was seeing movement. I was seeing choreography, because the staff are working repetitive tasks over long periods of time. The way they move, even just around each other, was beautiful to watch.”
Their movements inspired Elliott to develop a groundbreaking dance sequence, set in the Kitchen itself. She involved the staff members in live performances, which were held November 11 and 12 and shot by local filmmaker Kayla Jeanson. Music was by American recording duo Sofi Tukker and local sound designer Dasha Plett.
“I created gesture phrases for the staff,” explained Elliott. “Movements, just with my arms mostly, that were inspired by things they did. So, for example, I would see staff flipping a piece of bread to make sandwiches, over and over and over again. So, the first movement is flip, the next one is pull, we place something on the top rack, we brush water off our arms, and we push something to the side. They do those five gestures, repeated over and over again.”
Kitchen dance in six parts
The Hospital Kitchen Project brought the live audiences on a physical journey through six different kitchen stations, Elliott explained.
“I danced solo in some of these stations; in others, our guests got to watch the staff working, and they even got to watch the staff dance,” she said.
Rolling cutlery sets in napkins started the dance sequence at the first station. “The staff sit at work and roll metal and plastic cutlery all day long. Something I found really lovely for myself was to sit and join them in the rolling,” she added. “I got to chat with them one-on-one or in small groups. The task of rolling cutlery for an hour was calming on my mind as I conceived the project.”
Elliott gave guests at the shows the opportunity to roll their own sets of cutlery during this part of the performances, which they would later use to sample some of the Hospital’s food.
Moving through the Kitchen to the second station, the spectators watched staff work in real time on the tray line, where the food is prepared for delivery throughout the facility.
The bake shop was the next destination, where Elliott performed a solo. “Then, the audience watched the staff dance down the aisle inside the Kitchen,” she said.
The tone of the project turned grittier as Elliott guided the groups into the loading dock attached to the Kitchen, where a Hospital van was parked. “It’s a different kind of dirty, industrial, cold space,” said Elliott. “It’s cooler in temperature. I performed there, inside the van.”
Denice, a Kitchen staff member, starred in the fifth station, the dish room. There, the spectators heard Denice speak first-hand about her memories of comfort food and growing up.
“I had interviewed, or had conversations with, staff like Denice asking them, ‘Who in your life has cared for you through food, and what did they make?’ And in hers, she talked about what her parents and her grandmother would make for her. She grew up in the Philippines, where the kitchen was outdoors. So, we got to have this beautiful scene painted for us. Through her memories and storytelling,” explained Elliott.
The Hospital Kitchen Project performances ended where they began, with staff rolling cutlery in napkins. Audience members were treated to a bowl of the day’s soup, as well as fresh goods from the bake shop. As they ate, Elliott concluded with a short story about her father and the food he cooked for her when she was growing up.
The Kitchen Dance film will be screened in the Galerie Buhler Gallery until January 21, 2026. Admission is free. Meanwhile, the film will also screen on TVs in some Hospital waiting areas.