Cookin' up stories at festival of emerging talents

Poetry, songs and food from Ethiopia and South America come together in a multicultural arts festival.

Saba Alemayoh will bring stories and tastes of Ethiopia to the event. Source: Emerge in Yarra

It's Ethiopian comfort food - “the backup dish.”

Founder of Melbourne-based Saba’s Ethiopian Restaurant, Saba Alemayoh, is talking about one of the dishes she’ll be serving at her Cookin’ Up Community event to be held next week, as part of the Emerge in Yarra multi-arts program. It’s the Ethiopian chickpea dish, shiro wat, very popular in Ethiopian and Sudanese cooking that Alemayoh describes as being as, “the backup dish, the when-you’re-on-a-budget-dish.”

“I liken it to the Ethiopian version of a bowl of tomato soup and a toasted cheese sandwich,” she says, referring to a classic Anglo-Australian combination. And, next week, Alemayoh will be serving the shiro wat alongside a slow-cooked lamb, “a celebratory meal,” in collaboration with artist and dancer, Neda Rahmani.

The Emerge in Yarra multi-arts program runs until next  Saturday, July 8. The program, which is entering its fourteenth year, has long heralded and supported the new creative talents who constantly emerge from the growing refugee and culturally diverse communities of Melbourne. There will be 10 events over 10 days, including works in the visual arts, dance, music, theatre, food and combinations of these. 

Alemayoh, who was born in 1989 in Sudan to Ethiopian parents, is passionate about East African culture. She moved to Australia in 1999, maintaining her strong connections to her Ethiopian heritage, expressed mostly through food in her restaurant in Melbourne’s Brunswick and through products she sells under the label Saba’s Health Foods, including teff flour - the key to the traditional Ethiopian bread, injera.

Of the two Cookin’ Up Community events being held as part of Emerge in Yarra, this first one on July 4 will see Alemayoh and Rahmani combine forces to bring stories of their heritages through flavours, scents, story-telling and dance. Rahman, who was born in Iran to an Iranian father and a Mauritian mother, has performed in Melbourne for many years and in this collaboration she will draw on her 2014 show Cherry Cherry, a performative dining experience.

Oscar Jimenez will appear at the second Cookin' Up Community event. Source: Emerge in Yarra

If you’d rather immerse yourself in the flavours and fun of South America, the second event on July 5 will have Chilean theatre director Jaime Wilson-Ramirez, who works as a playwright and poet, cooking, talking and sharing stories with Colombian singer-songwriter Oscar Jimenez.

Local musicians are always a feature of the annual Emerge festival.

Other events on the Emerge program include The Visible Project Showcase on July 2 which will launch some new music by upcoming artists who have participated in MAV’s Visible Music Mentoring Program, including Neil Morris, Kaiit Waup, Cyprien Kagorora and Koraly Dimitriadis.

There will also be workshops for musicians who want to hone their business skills, in B4U Play Forum on July 1; while the Campfire Stories: Arise event (already sold-out) will be a relaxed and intimate evening on July 4 with storytelling and spoken word from around the globe.

The festival highlight on July 7 is a new work, Osono, created by Our Culture, fusing West African and First Nations traditions of music, dance, theatre and storytelling.

But cak to Cookin’ Up Community. Alemayoh says that guests will arrive to glasses of black, spiced tea, “a variation on what Ethiopian women may serve at home and sell as street traders to make money for their families,” she says, adding it is a mix of black tea with cinnamon, cardamon and cloves. “Australians love tea and in Ethiopia and Sudan they drink tea all day too, we love it!” Alemayoh is most excited about the aspect of telling stories throughout the meal. “We will discuss elements of every part of the meal and sharing stories of the women who fed us and continue to feed us.”