AN EXTENDED VISION FOR MALTA'S DRAMA CENTRE


As Malta becomes more immersed in the European cultural experience, The Drama Centre assesses and sets out to meet new expectations through a series of newly launched programmes based on the belief that theatre is a rehearsal for life.

As from October 2004, the Drama Centre in Malta extended the training it has been giving to student-actors and potential stage directors.

For the past 28 years, The Drama centre (formerly known as the Manoel Theatre Academy of Dramatic Art) has been providing a training platform based on courses dealing with essential elements of the creative work of the actor. This included the nature of acting, the aims and tasks of the actor on stage, improvisation, intercourse on stage, characterization and work on the role.

The Centre has always provided also the basic techniques required for the feel and control of the physical aspect of the theatrical art, as well as fundamental exposure to the art of speech, an area which has always presented difficulty to theatrical training in Malta. For this reason, for instance, the Drama Centre will start to concentrate more intensely on vocal action, with reference to the work accomplished by the masters of the Third Theatre: Jerzy Grotowski, Eugenio Barba, Peter Brook, Julian Beck, Ingemar Lindh and others.

The Centre has already offered an optional initial course in vocal action techniques over the summer months, in a series of Sunday workshops introduced this year for the first and conducted by theater animator and composer Rube Zahra. Mr. Zahra has been living in California over these past four years, composing film music in Los Angeles and world music in San Francisco.

Other Sunday workshops at the Drama Centre dealt with Stanislavskian techniques, Brechtian approaches and political theatre as prompted by Augusto Boal. In the coming months, the Drama Centre will be extending these workshops further and has already booked the services of local and foreign theatre makers and dance animators, including Norma Camilleri, Maryanne Cachia, Albert Marshall, Lino Farrugia, Irene Christ and Frank Horner (Germany), John Williams (UK) and Svetlana Silina (Russia).

While Ms. Christ will be concentrating on the interpretation of realist drama from Scandinavia to include Ibsen and Strindberg, Mr Horner will address would-be directors and senior students. On her part Ms. Silina, a professionally-trained dancer in the Vagonova method will be conducting regular classes in Body Movement, Character Dance and Musical Theatre.

Also from this year, The Drama Centre will be tutoring forty children in classes leading to certification by the Royal Academy Dance (UK) and offering the opportunity for students to obtain credits and certificates from Trinity College in London. Grade and diploma examinations in both drama and music are internationally recognized, an important factor as The Drama centre seeks new directions for the 21st century.

The project is being conducted in association with the Malta Centre of Trinity College London and will offer unlimited scope and flexibility, ranging from effective text rendering, individual acting in musical theatre, physical theatre, and individual and social communication skills.

It is also the intention of The Drama Centre to extend its training programmes to persons of all abilities, so as to bring into effect the Government's stated policy of an inclusive approach to the performing arts. To quote Trevor Nunn, director of the Royal National Theater in Britain, providing theater to persons of all abilities and backgrounds would provide us with a glimpse of a more perfect world in which human beings of every kind demonstrate their talents, which deserves our attention and support.

It is also for this reason that The Drama Centre launched its outreach, community theatre programme. Other new courses at the Centre now include Personality through Drama, Musical Theatre, Choir Singing for Musicals, Flamenco classes, Jazz Dance and Modelling.

A vital part of the Drama Centre's new mission statement is related to inclusiveness, so as to abandon the idea of hierarchies, of socially advantaged and disadvantaged persons, the selected and those left on the margin. Community theatre is an important device for communities and groups to share narratives, participate in social dialogue, and to break down the exclusion of groups on the margin. The concept of community theatre has to do with reaching out and exploiting people's innate need to create something out of their own stories, experience and imagination. This sort of theatre relates to creativity for a life.

Eighteen persons had submitted an application to join the Drama Centre's first Community Theatre Course, which spreads over two years and involve actual pilot projects in different localities. The list of animators for this course includes Ms. Joyce Grech, a qualified drama graduate, and Mario Azzopardi, the director of the Centrer, who is also a qualified theatre animator. Joining the Centre there will also be local and foreign groups who practice outreach performance, including tutors from Slovakia, Germany and France.

Another new course at the Drama Centre addresses personality development, a one-year programme specifically designed for adults who want to come to terms with themselves and explore enhanced personal growth and group dynamics through theatrical methodology. The course basically offers the skills needed for the real world, a frame for rehearsing for real life.

The range of basic and innovative programmes being offered will enhance the mission of The Drama Centre. The new scheme will not only encourage the usual scope of appropriate training but will feature innovative approaches in the art of theatre mechanics.

The Malta Drama Centre is run under the direct auspices of the Further Studies and Adult Education Department of the Education Division.

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