On Saturday night Brooklyn’s UrbanGlass glass-making studio hosted “The Act of the Table,” the latest performance by the glass-blowing collective the Burnt Asphalt Family, in which its 40+ members created glass sculptures while preparing a meal for the audience of about 100. From cooking pork on hot plates of molten glass (above) to roasting sausage links by passing them through a just-blown tube of piping hot glass, the event combined the extreme kitchen feats of an over-the-top cooking show with the expert choreography of a packed yet perfectly coordinated studio.

Among the many spectacular and ephemeral glass sculptures that served as cooking vessels before being unceremoniously smashed were a drooping horn in which a string of Brussels sprouts and cherry tomatoes was insta-grilled (above) and a freshly-blown bell jar inside which another hunk of pork was roasted by dual flame-throwers  (below).

Also on hand was a flame-throwing steel sculpture of a sphinx (below), which was fired up toward the end of the performance to char some pineapple. The finale in this veritable ballet of glowing glass bulbs was the creation of a centerpiece sculpture — a tree-like form with cup-shaped flowers on its branches — which was set before a paper backdrop that then went up in flames. The cathartic conclusion was met with cheers and applause from the collective and its audience, all of whom then pounced upon the spread of glass-cooked food.

For desert, two members of the collective wielded tiny torches, making smores out of specially cast lemon-shaped marshmallows and tooth-shaped white chocolate (below). The melting treats were a fittingly sweet epilogue an evening of aromatic glass-blowing performance art.

— Benjamin Sutton (@bhsutton)

(Photos by the author.)