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The Community Section at the Malta Drama Centre has devised a new Forum Theatre project which has started touring several localities in March 2011.
The production, based on a short story by Mario Azzopardi, adapted for the stage by tutor-director Dorothy Singh, is scheduled to tour Burmarrad, Sliema, Siggiewi, Qormi and Hamrun.
EVE tells the story of a woman, a wife and a mother, who works with an agency caring for refugees and clandestine immigrants in detention. When she becomes the target of violence by racist neighbours, her husband demands she leaves her job to protect the interests of their family. Eve is caught in a crucial dilemma.
A full report of the Community group's offering at the Burmarrad locality can be accessed under REPORTS.
Photo: A section of the audience for the Forum Theatre at Burmarrad.
Tennessee Williams’ play The Rose Tattoo was an apt choice of play to stage, particularly in a Maltese context. Its cast of characters, of Italian American origin, found immediate empathy with an audience that is attuned to its Mediterranean Catholic undertones. This was one of the reasons why the Manoel Theatre, in collaboration with the American Embassy and the Malta Drama Centre (Lifelong Learning Department) chose this play to celebrate the centenary of William’s birth and the sixtieth anniversary of its premiere on Broadway.
Combining comedic elements with hints of tragedy in its emotional range, The Rose Tattoo tells the story of a strikingly attractive widow, Serafina delle Rose, whose touching love for her husband, Rosario, crumbles when after his death she finds out he’d been two-timing her. The matter is further compounded when Rosario’s lover, Estelle, asks Serafina to make a shirt for a man she’s deeply in love with whom Serafina instinctively knows to be her disingenuous husband. It turns out that Alvaro’s job as a salesman is also a cover for Mafia drug running. Serafina’s double loss, that of the man she loves and her happy memories of him are expressed through her increasingly strange behavior.
This puts her at the mercy of the machinations of the town’s gossips.
What follows is sheer comedy laced with a lot of pathos.
The Rose Tattoo was successfully staged at the Manoel Theatre between the 20 and 22 May. Jane Marshall was cast in the heavily demanding role of Serafina delle Rose with key support from Kris Spiteri (Alvaro) and Sharon Bezzina (Rosa, the widow’s daughter). Other roles were played by Marvic Cordina, Mary Rose Mallia, Anna Bassily, Stephanie Bugeja, John Grech, Renato Dimech and Erin Stewart Tanti. The play also involved a large number of former and current Drama Centre students including a complement of energetic children. Direction was by Albert Marshall, a veteran tutor at the Drama Centre.
MALTA DRAMA CENTRE CELEBRATES TENNESSEE WILLIAMS CENTENARY
The Malta Drama Centre will this year (2011-2012) be offering for the first time two courses in Classical Arabic Dance, leading to preliminary and intermediate certification. The courses are open to applicants aged 13 years and over.
The first course will focus on learning basic Belly Dance techniques and will normally take eight sessions, culminating in choreography.
The intermediate course, on the other hand, continues to build on the preliminary and move students towards an applied cabaret context which can be used in actual shows.
Both courses will also include normative information with regards to Belly Dance styles and history.
Both courses will be directed by Ms. Corinne Turner, a professional tutor and performer.
Other new courses covering the period from October 2011 to the end of May 2012 will include Drama for Personality, Voice Technique, Musical Theatre for the Actor / Singer, Freestyle (Hip Hop and R&B), Stage Make up and History of Theatre. A full list of courses is indicated on the Drama Centre website (www.maltadramacentre.org) and more information as well as application form can be obtained either online or by phoning 21220665 during office hours.
The Malta Drama centre forms part of the Lifelong Learning Directorate within the Ministry of Education, Employment and the Family.
Photo Caption : Arabic Dance tutor and performer Ms Corinne Turner.
BELLY DANCING INTRODUCED AT MALTA DRAMA CENTRE
ADAPTATION OF JESHUA'S STORY
Mario Azzopardi's provocative short story Gexwa ta' Nazrat (Jeshua of Nazareth) has been adapted to the stage and directed by Albert Marshall with a group of senior students from the Malta Drama Centre. The studio production mixed contemporary styles with lyrical scenes and was enhanced with 'devotional' set pieces, reminiscent of Maltese religious ritual related to Holy Week.
Retaining the essentiality of Christ's controversial presence in the original script, Marshall finally shifted the attention to the Virgin Mother who is first carried shoulder high and then is ritually 'killed' like her son.
The piece was certainly one of the highlights at the Malta Drama Centre for the year 2010 - 2011. Two full houses marked the event.
The original story, Gexwa ta' Nazrat is contained in Azzopardi's anthology Vampir, published by Horizons Ltd in 2010.
A Full Course 2011 – 2012
As from October 2011 the Malta Drama Centre will offer a brand new course in Voice Technique. The course will cover voice setting, building breathing capacity and vocal stamina, diction, resonance, voice and motion and voice and emotion.
The course will also include the following aspects : The actor and the text, the actor and the subtext, ulterior voice meaning, text and motion, text and vocal feeling.
Voice Technique will run from October until May 2012 and will be conducted by Mr Dragan Donkov, a graduate of the Sofia Academy of Dramatic Art and Cinema in Bulgaria.
The course will run on Tuesdays from 18.00 to 20.30 hrs.
Interested students / ex students are encouraged to take this course. Applications are being received at the Malta Drama Centre from June 15 until July 30, but early subscription is highly recommended.
VOICE TECHNIQUE
The Malta Drama Centre accepted an invitation by Masquerade Malta to have its senior students participate in a Mime workshop directed by Mollie Guilfoyle from Trinity Guildhall UK. Ms Guilfoyle is a leading mime artist and director.
Thirty students, a mix from the Drama Centre and Masquerade, were introduced to the secret principles and techniques of Mime, especially the style associated with Decroux.
Students got the opportunity to practice techniques and styles and to perform pieces.
The workshop was a great way to work on the physical aspect of the creative arts.
“We were fascinated by the workshop,” says Marcia, and got a most useful understanding of non-verbal communication.”
Another student, Stephanie said, “Ms Mollie came across as extremely professional, showing us the intricacies of our own natural movements and how to employ them creatively and with easy control.”
Photo : 1. Ms Mollie Guilfoyle – from the UK to the Malta Drama Centre
Photo : 2. Students in session during Ms Guilfoyle’s mime workshop
MIME ARTIST MS GUILFOYLE (US) AT THE MALTA DRAMA CENTRE
The show, which lasts about twenty five minutes, is then extended to involve interaction with residents who are encouraged to move to music and sing songs they were loving earlier on in their lives.
The aim of the programme, which will run through summer, is to encourage mental and emotional involvement in the elderly through “alternative therapy”.
“We notice that the environment takes on a different dimension for the residents,” says a spokesman for the Drama Centre. “Performers, residents and staff enter a new relationship process, away from stereotypical assumptions about old age.”
PERFORMING FOR THE ELDERLY
There are signs that social work with the elderly may be changing. A key group at the Malta Drama Centre is concerned with social work for the vulnerable, including immigrants, persons in rehabilitation and elderly people.
A current programme of interactive shows is touring six homes for the elderly, featuring two tutors of Spanish Dance and two graduate, mature students who have studied musical theatre as their special discipline.
The programme with the elderly is organized under the auspices of the Lifelong Learning Directorate and assisted by the Ministry of Education and the Family and the Parliamentary Secretariat for the Elderly.
Photos : Performers from the Drama Centre in action at a Residence for the Elderly.
Bhala parti mill-iskema ta’ programmi “outreach”, il-Malta Drama Centre, matul ix-xhur tas-sajf 2011 , dahal biex jipprezenta xows interattivi ma’ residenti ta’ sitt djar ghall-anzjani. Matul l-ahhar snin, il-MDC organizza diversi programmi ghal persuni emarginati jew vulnerabbli, fosthom immigrant irregolari u persuni li qed isegwu programmi ta’ riabilitazzjoni. Dawn il-programmi tnidew anki fl-Ewropa fi nhawi bhal-Latvja, l-Ungerija, il-Polonja, l-Awstrija, il-Germanja, Franza u l-Italja, fost ohrajn.
Minn Patricia Gatt, B.A. (Hons).
INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP WITH DRAMA ANIMATOR BRUCE WALL (UK)
The Community Theatre Group at the Malta Drama Centre is being involved in an inter-active workshop with a professional animator, Bruce Wall from Britain. The two-hour workshop begins with warm up games developed by the London Shakespeare Workout (LSW) leading to work with especially devised texts including The Shakespeare Insult Kit (never has insulting someone been so joyful) and other wholly interactive elements especially created for LSW by leading practitioners ranging from Peter Brook to Sir Jonathan Miller to Al Pacino.
The Malta Drama Centre is commemorating the fiftieth anniversary since the passing of national poet Dun Karm with a studio production of a dramatic collage, infused with biographical references, of his best poems. The production’s highlight is expected to be a dramatized version of Dun Karm’s classic work Il-Jien u Lil Hinn Minnu, which diverse critics agree epitomises the poet’s literary career and constitutes a poetic answer to Ugo Foscolo’s I Sepolcri. This poem is considered to be important both thematically and also stylistically. Directed by Alan Fenech, the Drama Centre’s dramatized version includes interpretations by individual actors and choral sequences.
THE MALTA DRAMA CENTRE COMMEMORATES THE NATIONAL POET
A Little Bit of Sun (Ponn Ckejken Xemx), a docu-drama on Russian poet Osip Mandelshtam (1891 - 1938) was staged at the Drama Centre on December 17th, 2011 to mark the 120th anniversary of the writer�s birth.
The performance featured senior students of different nationalities under the direction of Albert Marshall.
Castigated by Stalin for his dissent and "insolent" poetry against the dictator's brutal regime, Mandelshtam was exiled and died at a concentration camp. A controversary still rages as to the way he died : was it of a cardiac arrest or was the poet murdered?
In a programme note, Marshall wrote that the docu-drama was meant not only to mark the poet�s birth anniversary but also "to celebrate those brave voices that confront censorship and mediocrity in oppressive systems, be they political or religious in nature."
A Little Bit of Sun was written by the Drama Centre's director, Mario Azzopardi, himself a poet known for the controversial issues he raises as a creative writer and cultural journalist.
A group of Flamenco students, including children, tutored by Ms Svetlana Silina and her assistant, Ms Renee Saliba, entertained the residents of Villa Messina in Rabat (Malta) for Yuletide. The performance formed part of a festivity to celebrate Christmas at the Home.
Another feature involved interactive seasonal songs in Maltese, English and Italian, interpreted by singers Christabel and Lorna from the Drama Centre. They animated the residents to sing chorally titles they remembered from their childhood and youth when they celebrated Christmas in a much more modest manner. Some of the residents danced to the songs and opted to perform solo numbers.
The event formed part of the Drama Centre�s outreach programme for 2011.
A dance show to mark Yuletide festivities was held at the Drama Centre on 19th, 20th December 2011.
The performance, staged at the Centre�s Main Studio featured Musical Theatre, Egyptian Arabic Dance, Classical Ballet, Spanish (Flamenco) Dancing, Freestyle and Break Dance.
More than sixty intermediate and senior students, accompanied on stage by their respective tutors, took part in the show, in front of two packed audiences.
The Director for Lifelong Learning, as well as high ranking officials attended the show.
Agenzija Zghazagh, within the Parliamentary Secretariat for Youth and Sports, in association with the Malta Drama Centre has launched the European Year of Active Ageing and Intergenerational Solidarity.
The year 2012 is meant to promote healthy ageing in EU countries. Healthy ageing, according to the EY2012 vision, is not just about prolonged life, but rather about ageing in good health for as long as possible. This entails, of course, collateral new realities involving families, care workers and those operating within specific social structures. Within such a context, EY2012 is also meant to enhance cooperation and solidarity between generations.
This year it was the turn of the Arabic Clasical Dance students to perform two titles to choreography by Corinne Turner (currently in Germany to conduct dance workshops and to perform in live shows) and rehearsed by Yasmin Falzon, tutor and belly-dancer. This is the first time that dances from the Maghreb were performed, after a specialised course opened for our students last October (2011).
Another group, composed of female senior Free Style students, performed at Marsascala, coached by dance tutor Elaine Falzon, who joined the Malta Drama Centre last year.
Both groups were given a rousing welcome by the locals and the town Mayor. The Carnival event, which came at the end of a colourful defile along the Marsascala esplanade, was coordinated by Alfred Debono.
Two groups of dancers from the Malta Drama Centre were invited to perform at St. Anne open air gardens in Marsascala as part of the the Carnival festivities (2012), organised by the Local Council. It is customary for the Centre to particpate in such outdoor events and both drama and dances are presented to appreciative audiences. The practice is meant to expose our students, as part of their training, to live audiences, so as to enhance their confidence in their rerspective acts.