Yesterday I sat in the front row of ZfinMalta and felt an incredible surge of emotions. Amongst them was passion for what I was watching, empathy towards the emotions being transmitted through the performance, empathy for the pain I knew they had to be in whilst dancing barefoot, dragging their bodies across the floor and attempting feats the human body may not have entirely been designed to perform. However, the most important emotion I felt was pride – pride as to how far Malta has come in regards to the dance discipline. First of all, I’m an ex dancer myself – I danced for many years as a recreational past time until work and life simply became too much and I could no longer find a place for it in my life.
I never dedicated the amount of time that would have been required to became a professional so to speak, but to be fair there weren’t exactly the opportunities to encourage that there are today and that’s the key difference. Our dancers now have a lot to work towards, we always had talent, we always had skill but now we have the most important thing of all – opportunity and that is what makes me proud.
Regarding the actual performance – I loved it, the dancers are strong and controlled, both physically, technically and emotionally. They dance with passion and spirit – every movement comes alive without the need of fanfare and stunt-type dance moves. This is the type of dance that is meant to be felt and experienced, not just watched.
All the dancers are great but three of them I once had the pleasure of dancing next to in dance class and they were an absolute pleasure to watch. Florinda Camilleri always captivated me, the emotion which she brings to a piece is in my opinion unparalleled and whenever she was on stage my eyes were irreversibly drawn to her. Christina Aquilina is so technically strong, I was almost sad it wasn’t her turn to perform the duet although I did get to watch the marvelous Mavin Khoo who of course needs no introduction. The other is Keith Micallef who I remember just starting out, he was always a strong dancer but he has now become an extremely passionate dancer and the combination is simply great. I must also mention Kostas Papamatthaiakis who danced an entire solo choreographed by Francesca Tranter, Malta’s contemporary dance mother. The story line behind the piece is about the willingness of courage to take a risk – dancing an entire solo that required a great deal of technical skill and expertise on a night where surely a great number of dancers are in the audience, mustn’t have been easy, so in this case it’s almost about the reality of the situation.
A big hats off to the choreographers Ivan Perez Aviles, Mavin Khoo who is also the artistic director of the company, Francesca Tranter and Jose Aguda – each of them presented a piece of wonderful, expressive art last night.
In short – a big applause to our national dance company – I expect many great things from this venture.
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