From Glasgow-based performance maker, poet and self professed foodie Sean Wai Keung comes A History of Fortune Cookies -an intimate, highly unique performance for only 10 audience members at a time. This new performance is the recipient of the Summerhall Autopsy Award 2024, which supports artists working in Scotland to bring boundary-pushing live performance to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
A live theatre and spoken word cooking performance, A History of Fortune Cookies sees Sean bake the enigmatic after dinner snack for each audience member, all while blending in the true history of the fortune cookie – a dessert formed from both Western and Chinese culture – with his own real-life experiences as a mixed-race person from a Chinese Takeaway family.
Sean is well known in the Scottish poetry and spoken word scene, with his debut collection sikfan glaschu published by Verve Poetry Press in 2021. His work often explores migration, his relationship to Scotland, belonging and – at its heart – food.
Sean’s gentle, funny and expert spoken world will intimately guide audience members through the 30 minute performance, leading them to each write their own fortune, placed into a cookie by Sean for them to take away with them to enjoy – or give to a stranger.
