THE National Book Council (KNK) has invited the Malta Drama Centre to devise a drama programme built around excerpts from contemporary Maltese Literature. The Centre will present a Theatre Collage based on modern Maltese Poetry, a project which will be directed by Albert Marshall.
A cast of six actors will present a dramatised renderering of the selected verse. The Collage will be offered to the public on April 24. This is not the first time that the Centre has devised dramatic performances based on poetry: last year the Malta Drama Centre commemorated T.S. Eliot and (Palestinian poet) Mahmoud Darwish with dramatised texts, with Lino Farrugia directing.
FESTIVAL IN ITALY
INTERMEDIATE Students at the Malta Drama Centre are currently preparing a new play which will be presented at the Sapperlot Youth Drama Festival in Bressanone, Northern Italy at the end of May/beginning of June 2009. The play is based on a legend set in an ancient village whose people are asked by the Sun God to offer a human sacrifice in return for rain. Ten adolescent students from the Centre will make the trip to Italy. The devised drama is being directed by Lizzie Eldrige and Albert Marshall. In Italy, Ms Eldrige will be assisted by Stefan Aquilina, another Maltese tutor from the Centre.
FORUM THEATRE IN GREECE
FIVE Extended Programme students from the Malta Drama Centre will travel to Thessaloniki in Greece in May to take part in a three-partner project sponsored by the Lifelong Learning (Grundtvig) Scheme of the European Union. Under the direction of Abigail Williams, the Maltese side will join partners from Grece and Austria to devise Forum Theatre based on a social issue relevant to the Greek reality. The topic concerns the health hazards provoked by the installation of radio antennas on Hortiatis Hill, which dominated the small town of Asvestohori in Thessaloniki. This will be the third phase of the EU project, after the three partners already met in Malta and in Austria.
DEMO WORKSHOPS
BETWEEN April March 23 and April 7 2009, the Malta Drama Centre will be inviting parents of students at all level to a series of Demonstration Workshops held at the Centre's Main Studio. All practicising tutors will run sessions with their students in front of parents and also invite parents to join. The idea is to let parents have a concrete idea about their children's ongoing work at the Drama Centre. Some tutors will run actual workshops incorporating training in voice, movement and improvisation while others will present work in progress related to actual studio productions. On April 7 a group of senior students will also present a collage based on selections from Shakespeare, directed by Carmel S. Aquilina.
INVITATION FROM RUSSIA
THE Drama Centre has been been invited to take part in the Drama Encounter to be held north-east of Moscow between July 3-14 2009. Four male and four female students, aged between 12-14, will travel to Russia to present a work based on old Maltese children's games. The theme of the Encounter is Play without Limit and the Maltese entry, directed by Albert Marshall, will be built around physical theatre, chants and improvised music. In Russia, the Maltese students will mix with drama students from other nationalities to participate in workshops which further explore the theme of the Encounter. Mr Marshall will run a "Maltese" workshop for foreign participants and will be assisted by tutor and actress Yvette Buhagiar.
THE MDC IN VIENNA
ANOTHER group of students from the Malta Drama Centre will take part in a drama festival for young people organised in Vienna in July by IATA. The theme of the Festival is Right or Wrong and the Maltese group will present a parody based on a script by the MDC Coordinator, Mario Azzopardi on the notion of sham democracy. The Maltese entry will be directed by Lino Farrugia who will travel to the Austrian capital to lead and direct the group.
MDC STUDENTS AT THE MANOEL THEATRE
AN AGREMENT between the Malta Drama Centre and Malta's national theatre (The Manoel) will allow students from the Centre to take part as extras in productions presented at the Manoel. This is considered to be an opportunity for students to take part in semi-professional productions which require a high level of performance. A complement of six volunteer students under the direction of Lino Farrugia have already walked the boards as street children on an imaginary island of the Italian mainland in a new Maltese play, Valeriana, which had won its author, Vince Vella, a BBC Award. A second group were selected to play as Turks in Mozart's The Magic Flute, directed by Maltese soprano Ms Miriam Gauci. Such participation will be offered as added training to students attending the Malta Drama Centre.
FLAMENCO MASTERCLASSES
TWO Spanish professional dancers, respectively arriving from the Conservatoires of Madrid and Cordoba, will be in Malta between April 12-18, 2009 as guests of the MDC to offer masterclasses in Spanish Dance to junior and senior students of Flamenco at the Centre. Spanish Dance at the MDC was introduced in 2006 under the tutorship of professional dancer Svetlana Silina Floriani and students enter the Certification examinations offered by the Flamenco Alliance of South Africa. The masterclasses are also being offered to students outside the Malta Drama Centre and those interested to participate should phone the MDC on 21-220-665 and ask for an application form and more details about registration.
PERFORMANCE IN RABAT
DANCE students from the Malta Drama Centre will perform at a public performance in the town of Rabat (Malta) on 5th April 2009. The event, coordinated by Erika Ferrito, will incorporate Classical Ballet, Contemporary Dance and Spanish Dance. More than 100 students will be participating under the guidance of their respective tutors, Ms Ferrito, Ms Silina Floriani, Ms. Tiziana Nasser and Ms Antonella Zammit.
© 2008 - The Drama Centre Malta , All rights reserved.
PARODY ABOUT SHAM DEMOCRACY
FAKUSI LOTU KUMBA (a nonsensical term supposed to mean "right or wrong") is a dynamic production which will travel to Vienna to take part at the forthcoming Wien X-tra Theatre Festival (2009) in July. Based on a text by Mario Azzopardi, the Centre's director, it is a parody about sham democracy and technically stretches the actors' skills to the limit. They use different styles of acting to portray the abuse of democratic practice and the manic demonstration of power of one group over another, according to "colour".
The so called Jungle Divinity calls the shots and terrorizes the people in impressive sequences fuq of "energetic evil", but the play also allows for instances of frivolous, even senseless entertainment by way of chants and dances.
The Maltese piece is being directed by Lino Farrugia, one of Malta's most inventive theatre directors and who will accompany the group to the Austrian capital.
WILLIAMS & IBSEN STUDIO PRODUCTION
THE SENIOR GROUP (year 1) at the Malta Drama Centre is presenting its end of term production on March 25, 2010. The group is directed by Stefan Cachia Zammit as tutor/dirtector and the full programme is as follows:
* A Mini-sketch: ‘L-Assistenti’. A piece created and performed by Rebecca Bezzina, Rozita Lautier & Antonella Zammit
* An excerpt from ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ (1947) by Tennessee Williams. Actors: Daniela Attard & Daniela Carabott Pawley
* A Mini-sketch: ’Zewg Nisa’. Created and performed by Rebecca Bezzina & Rozita Lautier
* An excerpt from ‘The Glass Menagerie’ (1944) by Tennesse Williams. Actors: James Naudi & Antonella Zammit
* A Mini-sketch: ‘Ilhna minn wara l-Kwinti’. Created & performed by Daniela Attard, Daniela Carabott Pawley & James Naudi
* An excerpt from ‘A Doll’s House’ (1879) by Henrik Ibsen. Actors: Rebecca Bezzina & Rozita Lautier
* A Mini-sketch: ‘Fl-Ahhar’. Created and performed by all the cast.
Director’s Note:
Our humble performance of tonight attempts to reach two main objectives: the first was for the students to sample some drama related to playwrights of the realism movement.
This genre roughly dates back to the mid-nineteenth century when artists, including playwrights, became more concerned with problems of ordinary existence. In many of these plays ordinary people emerge as victims of forces larger than themselves, unable to arrive at answers to their predicaments. Naturally one must watch a whole play or read some literature of the period to fully appreciate this style.
In our case, the students have tried hard to understand the psychology or the motives behind the characters in the short scenes being presented, which is important to the rest of the play. The second goal was to allow the students to be creative using the mini-sketches in between the scenes. These are presented as ‘work-in-progress’, which means they are not complete or perfected, but we hope the audience appreciates they are done without using a script and rehearsed only for a few hours.
Stefan Cachia Zammit
