With a fresh and innovative approach to audience engagement, ŻfinMalta presents Movimento, a series of appointments with experts, from Malta and abroad, who share their experiences to demystifying dance.
Join us at ŻfinMalta studios, for a series of discussions on movement led by experts coming from outside the field of dance. Acknowledging the vast overlaps between artistic forms and with the intention of cultivating active spectatorship in dance, Movimento invites audiences to sit and talk dance, and experience the stories of these diverse artists whose work intersects with movement.
Movimento offers a unique experience that delves into its subject, with our experts facilitating active engagement with dance, taking you on a journey of discovery that reveals how patterns of choreography can be found all around us.
Join us for the fourth appointment in the ŻfinMalta Movimento series for 2023 with our guest, Florinda Camilleri. Offering a brief overview of her research into feminist posthumanist perspectives of public space, Florinda leads audiences through an exercise in her developing practice “wanderMust” (an ethically-responsive need to wander the world by moving with-in it).
In a time of environmental crises, we urgently need to re-consider our ways of relating with the world as humans. The field of posthumanism offers rich terrain(s) for this line of inquiry. One of its most prominent theorists, Karen Barad, states that, “ ‘We’ are not outside observers of the world. Nor are we simply located at particular places in the world; rather, we are part of the world in its ongoing intra-activity” (2003).
How might we come to the understand the human body in a posthuman way – not as a closed, singular unit, but a complex system of multiple components, always already embedded in wider webs of human and more-than-human matters? To answer this question, I turn to my dancing body as an apparatus for knowledge production, and situate myself outside of studio-based or proscenium arch practices into urban public spaces.
Florinda is a dance artist from and based in Malta. She initiates, leads, and supports performing arts projects in Malta and internationally, taking on various roles as a contemporary dance and screendance performer, maker, collaborator, researcher, educator, rehearsal director, and producer. She graduated from Fontys University of Fine & Performing Arts with a Master of Arts in Performing Public Space in June 2022. In February 2023, she presented her first solo exhibition as part of the SPRING Program of the Gabriel Caruana Foundation, Affect Aliens. In March 2023, she delivered her first solo multidisciplinary performance Moving In Lines: Mapping Affective Geometries at the Casino Maltese, Valletta, by invitation of Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malta and the Victor Pasmore Gallery. Her work collaboratively investigates the sites of encounter between human and more-than-human bodies within public spaces through feminist and posthumanist perspectives, bringing forth questions of agency, responsibility, and care.
Rachelle and Francesca, two founding members of Young Progressive Beings, explored the role of activism in Maltese society, posing movement and the body at the centre of the discussion to instigate change. By defining space and its occupation through public stunts and protests, they demonstrated how YPB and other local activist groups have approached this in the last few years. They explored the future of activism and its relationship to art, space and the body, and showed their audience how the body is a powerful tool of activism.
Young Progressive Beings (YPB) is a grassroots voluntary organisation demanding better sex education in all schools, access to sexual health services, and the decriminalisation of abortion. YPB was formed after a pro-choice publicity stunt in June 2019 and has been active in many feminist debates. Today, YPB has nine young committee members interested in intersectional feminism and social justice who seek to mobilise youths into activism.
For the second appointment in the ŻfinMalta Movimento series for 2023, our guest expert John D’Arcy presented some examples from his artistic practice and invited a discussion on the potentials and challenges of incorporating varying forms digital media into movement practice. Our audience had an opportunity to engage with some of the technologies John works with, and experimented with 360 video!
Dr John D’Arcy is an artist and researcher based at the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC). His research interests include technology-mediated live performance, voice-based intermedia artwork, and participatory song-making. His recent project Pathways involves interdisciplinary collaboration between his digital media arts practice and Malta-based dance scholar and artist Paula Guzzanti, looking at how sensorial experience can be mediated using digital art to explore sustainable living practices.
Lara Zammit, Arts and Culture editor for The Times of Malta started of our Movimento season for 2022-23! Lara’s background in philosophy contributed to the way she approached her session, ‘Writing movement: Questions on choreography,’ as she unpacked and questioned what writing movement can entail.
Lara delved into two main concepts: Writing as movement (choreography) vs. Dance in writing, (the attempt to capture the practice of choreography in language or via notation.) We analysed a clip of ŻfinMalta in Tânia Carvalho’s ‘Weaving Chaos,’ and had our own try at practicing the skills necessary for dance criticism.
Alex Camilleri was the final guest of our third season, and showed us all the ways that movement enters his creative process, sometimes in ways never expected. He led us through the process of creating his debut feature film,’Luzzu,’ where he had to take on many roles, including director, editor, and finding his cast on a journey around Malta, which led to a new way of working and discoveries on the importance of adapting and growing as an artist.
We had the opportunity to learn about the purpose of different tools in film direction and editing, and the chance to watch parts of Alex’s film, where we could identify which of these devices Alex had used and why.
Dr Michael Quinton taught us about the practice of sonification and its widely practical application, as well as his own studies about our Solar System. His PhD consisted of translating the planets around us into a sound design: for both astronomers to use and easily identify data, and its use in a planetarium providing a surround experience for the blind.
Michael showed us how a system could be developed to translate data into sound, and in groups we had the chance to design our own sonification of the Solar System.
You can find out more about Michael’s Movimento session from our blog here:
Riccardo Buscarini joined us for a special edition of Movimento, in conversation with ŻfinMalta’s Artistic Director Paolo Mangiola, discussing his new take on a classic narrative for the upcoming Requiem for Juliet. Both experts were in their element: talking dance, and unpacking the classic tale of Romeo & Juliet as told in the aftermath by a grieving Lady Capulet. Audiences gained insight into the many facets of the creative process and planning for a dance production of this scale, premiering at Teatru Manoel in May. You can find out more about Riccardo’s Movimento session from our blog here:
Alexandra Pace guided us through some of her photographic, cinematic, and literary inspirations, as well as her own work that followed, to demonstrate her “pre-occupation with time and movement,” and how the perception of time can be manipulated with various tools across different art forms and mediums.
‘My medium is photography and the moving image, as well as the chopping and remixing of cult cinema, print-making and the darkroom. However, I am also the founder of Blitz Valletta and a digital designer. It sounds complicated but it’s actually all connected.’
You can find out more about Alexandra’s Movimento session from our blog here:
Tom Van Malderen gave us his perspective on movement, that of a skilled architect, sculptor, furniture designer, stage designer, and artist. Tom started his studies and career in architecture, for which he explains owes its existence to form and space, and “whos perception owes a great deal to movement.”
“We all observe and live in the world a different way – this is just the opinion of one person, in one body, with its own proportions, and perhaps you live in and relate to this world differently.”
You can find out more about Tom’s Movimento session from our blog here.
For further information on ZfinMalta’s Education and Participation programmes and to discuss the ŻfinMalta’s Artist Development programme, please contact our Education & Outreach Officer, Martina Zammit on martina.d.zammit@zfinmalta.mt
