Malta is part of iTaly: MTA said so

One of Mussolini’s dreams has finally come to fruition thanks to the hard endeavors of the Malta tourism Authority. Yes, finally, we can officially confirm that Malta and Italy are one. At least that is the impression given by the full page colour ad in last Sunday’s (London) Sunday Times Magazine.
The glossy ad, which carries a picture of Gozo’s azure window, proudly boasts that “Malta has always had strong connections with Sicily (what sort of connections? Mafia ones or is it perhaps transporting illegal immigrants between shores???). It goes on to say that 180,000 years ago there was even a bridge.

The text then explains that “Actually the links don’t stop at Sicily. At one stage it would have been possible to walk from Italy to Sicily through Malta and on to Africa. Indeed several thousand antelope, dwarf elephants, bears and wolves tried to do just that, in an attempt to escape the ice cap covering Europe. Their journey ended in Malta by which time the ice sheets had begun to melt and the valleys separating the countries were filled with what became the Mediterranean Sea. You can see the prehistoric remains of these creatures where they were discovered at allocation called Ghar dalam or “The Cave of Darkness”. Rather like the magnificent Azure Window pictured above, our bond with all things Italian has stood firm. Never more so than in our cooking, where you’ll find Italian influenced dishes prepared with ore than a dash of Maltese flair. Well, we have had several thousand years to perfect the recipes.”

So now we know:
We have perfected Italian cooking ( stop laughing at the back) You see boiling veg till there is no taste or serving mediocre and expensive food is a particularly refined variation of Maltese cooking.
Please don’t tell that to that bunch of cooks trying to revive MALTESE cuisine!
Are the Italians going to reimburse us for advertising Italy instead of Malta?
Will we be sued by Italian cooks for faking Italian cuisine?

WTCVS

PS At least we should give credit where credit is due and Tourism minister Francis Zammit dimech had this to say last week inhis regular column:

It is clear that additional advertising and proper marketing are required. Only last week I intervened with the authority to stop, as soon as possible, various adverts appearing in the UK press that are clearly totally inadequate at generating further sales. Writing long-winded and inaccurate essays about Napoleon or Malta's former links with Sicily is not the way to do it!

Criteria for a valid work of art

I am rather disgusted at how the Malta Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce could have the cheek to come up with a list of criteria over what makes a valid work of art and how Maltese artists should follow such rules in order for their works to be exhibited.

(http://www.artsmalta.org/documents/criteria_for_a_valid_work_of_art.doc)

How ridiculous is that! No rules should ever govern a work of art. More so, who has the right or the authority to come up with rules over what classifies art?

Evidently, the rules show how unfamiliar the Society is with the history of art. Does it not know that, over the years, there has been a significant departure from the conventions governing Western painting since the Renaissance? Is it not aware that the range of reality outside the traditional confines of art has expanded in every direction? Clearly, the artists of today have completely changed the pre-existing conception of art that declared the work to be a description of the objective, natural world. Their art does not follow tradition, dogmas or the domination of the individual. They have created an abundance of new art forms and techniques where there is no focal point, no distinction in tonality or colour and where they are not simply representing ‘what one can see.’

If the creation of art is going to have to abide by some rules in order for it to be exhibited, then it is not going to initiate the imagination of the senses. Such rules unmistakeably tie the audience to a single-minded vision of reality. They deny any substance to the relationship between vision, perception and representation in art where colour and form can take on many possible meanings. They are rules which prevent the materialization of imagery and produce paintings which are void of thought. They fabricate an art that stops at the retina but does not extend to the mind. True, radical art has always been looked upon as a social revolution. However, it was not just based on aesthetics but it called for a desire for social transformation that rejected the existing social order. Twentieth century Europe was caught between the modern experience and the anxiety over its consequences and all of its movements were formed by that turbulent moment. Such artists wanted a complete rebirth in art and were keen on redefining the relationship between seeing and representing. Their art involves opposing beliefs and values as well as different ways of viewing society and culture.

Still, the Society seems to believe that art should be limited to the constraints of convention in order to be ‘legitimate’. It, thus, produces a list of criteria which is formulaic and lacks any understanding of the diversity and thought-provoking nature of modern art’s intentions. Historically, there has been much development in the theory and practice of art and the Society is totally indifferent to the momentous and extreme changes that are taking place as there has been a total departure from the imitative mode of pictorial representation. All twentieth century movements have conceived of new modes of perception and production and have applied alternative stylistic features. So, does this make them invalid? And if yes, then does that mean that the Society absurdly believes that Malta’s artists should still be creating art that adheres to the academicism of the Middle Age and Renaissance period? And if this is the case, then what a shame indeed!

An artist should be able to move about freely in space and time and follow no set of rules except for his own. Equal value can be given to texture, tone, light and perspective and the meaning and significance of a picture may remain open to contention. A painting should not be seen as an illusion of actuality but as being its own reality. It should not be restricted towards the appearance of the object for which it stands. The artist should be allowed to explore the infinite universe and even question the accepted reality. He should be permitted to disregard the conventions of representation and be as imaginative as possible. After all, methods should rely on inspiration and not on rules. In other words, as opposed to what the Society’s rules cite, subordinate parts can be as clearly detailed as the central subject and a painting need not have a principle light but can show an evenness of working over the whole surface of the canvas. Shadows can be used in several ways and the figures may be as ambiguous as need be.

The Society should dwindle art into the whole of society and not just into a privileged minority. It must not systemize art because it runs the risk of abolishing dynamism and disallowing an interaction between art and society. It also invites the artist to be pretentious and merely adapt to the artificial conditions of actuality. Truly, an artist’s work is to be measured by the vitality, the creation and the belief of purpose within its own medium. Artistic creativity lies in the expressiveness, the possibilities of form invention and manipulation, and in the flat canvas on which various elements are brought to play.

If the Society is going to inflict rules upon Maltese artists, then it is doing nothing but disallowing the freedom of the artists’ imaginations and propagating disenchanted worlds that can not assure a creative response from the spectator. At the end of the day, whether paintings have been put to the service of the Church, the State, individual patronage or decoration, all the striking works that have been painted still live for us because of qualities they possess and not because they follow some rules which make them valid works of art.


LM

The Drama Centre - transformed into a wonderful bliss

After a year missing from drama school, having experienced the change I feel like writing something about May of last year when it all started…

The Drama Centre – Transformed into a wonderful Bliss The wind from the north wafted through my window bringing in a sweet and sour smell when I returned home after work and mum told me that I had a phone call from drama school saying that drama school sessions were suspended. I was shocked as this was my last year and we were supposed to start our end of year performance, of which I had already missed some sessions because of a motor accident I had had. Then there was silence! No phone calls. Only hearsay that tutors were flocking away from drama school! What is going to happen? This is my last year! Two weeks later a friend of mine (attending drama with me) informed me that that night we were going to decide with Mr.Azzoppardi which performance we were going to do as the final act to end our three year course. I was surprised as I did not know we had changed tutor, did not know we would change performance, did not know I had had a session the week before and did not know that tonight I had another one. “Thank God someone is going to save us!” P.S It so happened that I was unaware of the meeting due to the fact that the class was informed about it through a chain call, this very chain, however, evidently got lost somewhere along the way.

El Salvatore
I entered the black theatre (the studio at the drama school) and sitting in a circle around our salvation, found half of my class, obviously the others did not know we had a session as I myself would not have known if I was not lucky enough to talk to my friend earlier that evening. I was greeted (in a buddiesque manner….ie “Aw man int x’ismek?) By Mr.Azzoppardi whom I did not know personally but of whom I had read many of articles on papers and a person who I somewhat admired deep down. The discussion started (by now I had been engaged in a lot of past discussions with my group ….and I knew that this would not work). Mr.Azzoppardi was really concerned about, what according to him was the (quote) bullshit we had engaged in our lessons at the drama school prior to his arrival. Worthy of notice is also the fact that heartfelt thanks should go to those very few in the group for supporting him …..As we all know in the last three years the drama centre was a complete disorganized organization which led the students to “bullshit” because we were not introduced to Chekhov, Brecht, Stanislavski and Grotowski, such was Mr.Azzoppardi’s argument.

P.S I wondered how he knew what was going on at drama school as I never saw him in any of our productions, so I asked politely;

“Excuse Me.…but how would you know that all we did was bullshit, as you are saying, when you were never present at any of our presentations or workshops?”

His reply:

“U ejja Jimmy…issa ha noqoghdu infittxu x-xghara fl-ghagina wkoll, ghax qrajt fil-gazzetti…U ejja ha nahdmu min flok noqoghdu nparlaw !! “

I was amazed at his ability to convince us so quickly and smoothly, I was convinced, therefore I did not argue and replied… “Ok… He looked at me for few seconds and then smiled.

He was right, he was right indeed. Now it begins to be clearer why many people knew him with a particular nickname. I dawned upon me that this man could indeed be the god-like light we had awaited at the end of the dark tunnel we were not aware we were living in. I did not follow the discussion anymore, it was just a loop of arguments anyway, and instead I wallowed in the thought and memory of how unlucky I was to have ended up in the ‘bullshit era’. It was so obvious! After all, all we had worked on during this year was only a silly pantomime of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Marcelle Teuma which was an exercise on how to devise theatre, the futile extracts from Comedy of Manners with tutors Charles Sammut and John Attard, the Greek tragedy Antigone by Jean Cocteau with tutor Josette Ciappara, and the of course, the most shallow of them all was the combined project of Shakespeare and Theatre in Education with tutor Charles Sammut. These were productions which obviously encompassed “no Brecht and Grotowski”. Mr.Azzoppardi laughed at us when we told him that each one of them took us 3 months (1 school semester) to work upon and rehearse and added that when he used to be at drama school they used to do a script every week.

I asked myself how could you be introduced to all this big masters of theatre and understand their concepts in a week when accorinding to the essay in a book I borrowed from the school’s library (which was set up in the bulls hilt era) “At Work With Grotowski”, Grotowski himself expressed that a 4 week production is not enough for any actor to get into a character and find the emotions(Grotowski was against producing he had a whole process which went beyond character and emotion) How about saying:

I asked myself how effective would a one-week encounter with such masters be in such a short time….and more importantly how clearly would their concepts be impinged in our minds in such a short time. Grotowski himself, after all was against producing scripts in a superficial and fast manner with the sole purpose of producing a play at the end of the month or week. In fact he had a whole process which by the end of his career went far beyond even character and emotion and which was based on long and laborious preparation on part of the actor….which spanned a LOT more than a week.



... So listening to Mr.Azzoppardi telling us that he would make a production with us in a week or two I was really looking forward to start working with him through for this new tool, this new method which was something totally new for me.

I was once again lost in the reverie of miserable training exercises we did we had invested in during my prior two years at drama school: intensive sessions of one hour weekly of physical sessions, dancing, voice training, articulation exercises, characterization, devising texts, history of theatre. What a waste of time I was saying to me, “Why didn’t they get such a man to teach us in the last years?” I added to myself while watching him, skillfully maneuvering us towards this new philosophy. I must confess it took me sometime to be converted but at the end how could I refuse the learning of such light! All the master classes we had with artists such as Guillermo Horta, Emilie Fitzgiben (Devising a Script - Ireland), Electra Tselikas (Gdansk) Tatiana Brinkman (Amsterdam), Stephen Mottram (British sles), Ermanna Montanari and Marco Martinelli (Master Classes -Ubu Roi), Johan Wright (Archetypes –Masks – England) and Cornelia Cromholtz (Contemporary Director –Germany) Jackie Grima and Anton Farrugia (Theatre Make Up). I had also done an audition in which director Paul Portelli chose 10 students from drama school and worked with us during extra hours on physical theatre. It was all bullshit! Why am I so blind! The light is in front of me. I switched off from my past and started off in my new present. I started to pour in ideas and Mr. Azzoppardi went home to fetch a script. Il-Hajt , a socio-political script which we were supposed to do as our end of year performance. I was suddenly feeling excited. He had drive. We are working. We are saved. HALLELUJAH!!!

…. To be continued

Jimmy

Arts journalism at its best

I'm not sure who wrote this article but let's just hope that it's not the scriptwriter!

http://www.di-ve.com/dive/portal/portal.jhtml?id=181294&pid=1


On a serious note this clearly indicates how much arts journalism and criticism is taken for a ride. Some spend their time narrating the story, others tell us how varied the musical programme is going to be, others encourage us to pity them cause they perform after a 10 hour shift and others explain how 'the palk is one and a half storey high and the idea is based from musicals done abroad.' Ghax ta barra m'hawnx bhalhom! Well what's new! How many regurgitated foreign shows were produced in this year's theatre season?

toni

source: www.independent.com.mt 

vandalising our heritage

How can any human being commit such horrible acts against his/her own self, identity, heritage and Country?

Teaching management though literature

Here's a great example of how the multidisciplinary role of the arts can be applied to other areas. Thanks to British Council Malta, Startup Malta and Merlin, such concepts are also being explored in Malta.

http://www.di-ve.com/dive/portal/portal.jhtml?id=181012&pid=1

Exclusive MCC

Gay movement protests as MCC refuses to accept application for transsexual beauty contest

by di-ve news

VALLETTA, Malta (di-ve news)--May 02, 2005 - 1220CEST-

The Malta Gay Rights Movement (MGRM) has protested at the manner the Mediterranean Conference Centre (MCC) has refused an application to hold a beauty contest for transsexual contestants there. It asked the Tourism and Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech whether he approves of the way the matter was handled by the MCC chairman, Peter Fenech. According to the movement, Dr Fenech declined for several times to give both the organisers and MGRM any details why the MCC refused the application six months ago. MCC is bound to deal with proposals transparently, the movement argued. If the Mediterranean Conference Centre does have clear criteria on which it bases its decisions to accept or refuse applications, it must not keep them secret. MGRM said that such activities offer transsexual persons, in this case male to female, the necessary space to bring out their talents and share them with the public. These individuals are already discriminated against in mainstream beauty contests, in which they are usually rejected by non-transsexual females, the movement stated.