The Last Supper
A fusion of process and performance
In cooperation with Michael Dodt and The Last Supper Team
On a rainy night in the late winter of 2003, my wife and I were driving home from Frankfurt after meeting with our friend and business associate, Michael Dodt. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the idea came to me. “We must have a dinner in a church, in celebration of Easter, called The Last Supper,” I blurted out to my wife. “It will serve as both a commemorative event and an act of renewal for those involved.” As I spoke these words, a kind of energetic anointing took place – there was all this energy around my head, like a crown (I say crown because it felt like my hair was standing on end). I looked up at the sky through the window on my side of the car (my wife was driving), and it was as if the heavens had opened and there was a host of angels up there shouting, “Yes! Yes!” Such a heavenly response I took not only as confirmation, but as a kind of command. This must happen, I thought. And it did, the following year.
On Green Thursday, at the Weissfrauen Kirche in Frankfurt, after much planning and preparation, with a support group of twenty people (which included a crew of lighting specialists), an event called “The Last Supper” took place. Twelve guests of various backgrounds, ages and professions were invited to a four-course meal in the church. The meal was cooked on site by a chef and his two assistants. Each guest had been asked in advance to prepare a presentation lasting no more than ten minutes on a subject related in some way to the theme of renewal. There were four speakers in each of the three intervals between the courses. Two so-called historians, working directly on laptops, selected and condensed what was being said by the guests. Also present to record the event were a camera crew and the photographer Jörg Baumann.
Read more ⇒ the last_supper_concept (pdf 1,8 MB)
