Company SBB // Stefanie Batten Bland

Celebrity Series invites all ticketholders to a special post-performance reception and conversation in keeping with the “Look Who’s Coming to Dinner” theme of welcoming and inclusion on both performance days. 

Due to the layout of NEC's Plimpton Shattuck Black Box, there will be no late seating for this performance.

Jerome Robbins Award-winning artist Stefanie Batten Bland’s work Look Who’s Coming to Dinner is a modern-day thought-provoking theatrical dance piece that draws from the captivating and widely recognized 1967 film of a similar name. The film and the evening-length dance work share an overarching plot: an interracial engagement, and the familial reactions it garners.  

A diverse cast of seven dance theater artists explores universal truths and traumas through dance as they literally and metaphorically seek a seat at an ever-changing dinner table. According to the Brooklyn Rail, the performance is “a powerful work that does not ask, but forces us to take a seat at the table, and see.” 

Accompanied by an original score, Stefanie Batten Bland creates a powerful performance at the intersection of contemporary dance and theater, delving into complex human relationships in the context of social, political, and racial issues.  

“I think about the table in terms of whom we are going to let come to dinner [after the pandemic]. God, it better change. If we want to survive as a species, we’d better build a bigger table,”  

- Stefanie Batten Bland, to Bomb magazine. 

You're Invited: performance & conversation

Celebrity Series is excited to collaborate with Stefanie Batten Bland and Company SBB to offer Look Who’s Coming to Dinner attendees the opportunity to unpack the performance in conversation with the artists (Saturday only) and with their fellow audience members (both performances).

All ticket holders are invited to participate! Please come ready to share, and ready to challenge yourself and your assumptions about those around you. Celebrity Series will set the table with light refreshments and prompts for discussion and reflection, and you’re welcome to participate however you are most comfortable.

Saturday Evening, January 14, only

After the performance, Saturday evening’s guests are invited to join choreographer Stefanie Batten Bland and Company SBB dancers for a hosted and facilitated conversation about the performance and its creation. Audience members who wish to participate should make their way to the stage or move to the front of the seating section. 

Accessibility note: Chairs will be placed on the stage for the discussion, and a purpose-built ramp will be constructed and placed to accommodate audience members who use wheelchairs or other mobility aids.

Saturday Evening and Sunday Afternoon

Following Saturday’s onstage discussion, and immediately following Sunday’s performance, all audience members are welcome to convene in the lobby for dessert, tea/coffee, and conversation. Use a writing and reflection prompt to help focus your thoughts, or go where your thoughts and reflections take you. We invite you to write your responses down or talk them out with your fellow audience members.

This performance is generously sponsored by
Susan & Michael Thonis, with additional support provided by the Amy Lam Fund for Creative Performance.

This performance is made possible in part by support from Celebrity Series' LIVE PERFORMANCE! Arts for All Innovation Funds.