Photo credit: Rafael Mielczarek  

The School of Performing Arts at the University of Malta is organising its annual international conference and collective performance between the 8 and 10 March 2017 at the University of Malta Valletta Campus. On this occasion, the newly refurbished UM Valletta Campus Theatre will be launched by the Rector of the University of Malta, Professor Alfred J. Vella, on Wednesday 8 March at 1930hrs. The UM Valletta Campus Theatre (VCT), formerly known as the ‘MITP Theatre’, has undergone extensive restructuring works in the past eighteen months that have transformed it into a state-of-the-art performance space.

The theme of this year’s annual conference is: ‘Interweaving Cultures: Theory and Practice’. The term ‘Interweaving’ implies the meeting of two or more cultural realities that may result in various degrees of confrontation or adaptation; all cases are underpinned by power relations. Adaptation implies a selective process which may lead to a blending of certain cultural traits or expressions. Confrontation implies both encounter and clash; it can either lead to opposition, or to the creation of ‘hybrid’ realities. The interweaving of cultures was a recurrent feature in colonial regimes, but it is also a product of modern globalisation. The conference convener is Professor Vicki Ann Cremona, with keynote lectures by Prof. Ian Watson, Professor of Theatre and Chair of the Department of Arts, Culture and Media,  Rutgers University-Newark, Newark, U.S.; Professor Felicia McCarren, School of Liberal Arts, Tulane University, New Orleans, U.S.; Fadhel Jaibi (Theatre Director, Director of the National Theatre of Tunisia); and guest speaker Torsten Jost, Research Associate, Interweaving Performance Cultures, International Research Centre, Freie Universität, Berlin. More information and registration can be found at the following link.

Running parallel to the conference is the devised performance EKHO, led by guest theatre director Denise Mulholland. EKHO is an ensemble piece devised by students of the School of Performing Arts at the University of Malta. Combining music, theatre and dance in a series of vignettes, EKHO explores the telephone in its many forms- positive, negative, significant, trivial, essential and downright irritating. Recommended age for the performance is 12+.

The performance will take place at the Valletta Campus Theatre on 8, 9 and 10 March 2017, at 2000hrs. Entrance, from Merchants’ Street, is free of charge. Tickets can be booked through Stefan Sacco, at stefan.sacco@um.edu.mt.

The events are sponsored by the US Embassy, Malta.