Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Dance Council, in collaboration with the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts, has invited Ballet D’Europe to give two performances.
Mireille will be performed on Friday and Mozart:Requiem on Saturday at 9pm, as part of the Summer Arts Festival, to be held at the old Opera House site in Valletta. M. Jean-Charles Gil, the artistic director, will also be presenting a choreography with the participation of Maltese dancers selected from local dance schools.
Tickets at Lm10 & Lm12 are available from the Festival ticket booth in Freedom Square Valletta. Ticket Hot Line: 9999-0145.
The collaboration between the Dance Council and Ballet D’Europe was initiated in December 2005 when M. Gil visited Malta as a guest of honour for Dance Power 3 held at the Mediterranean Conference Centre. During his stay he worked on a choreographic piece to be presented during the performance as the finale.
This choreography was entitled MA, which represents the collaboration between Marseille, the home of the Ballet D’Europe, and Malta.
The second phase of the collaboration between the Dance Council, Malta and the Ballet D’Europe is to develop trans-national cooperation in the fields of training and apprenticeship for Maltese dancers. This will engage a young Maltese dancer in the last step of his or her training to be moulded into a professional dancer, with the eventual possibility of integration into the company as a performer.
There are over 25 dance schools in Malta, but only a few dance companies. Dancers undergoing vocational training cannot have the necessary apprenticeship to facilitate their integration into the labour market. For this reason, the promotion of trans-national mobility needs to be realised
The final phase of the project would work towards the Ballet D’Europe becoming a resident company in Malta. This means it would therefore work locally with potential dancers, allowing them to understudy choreographies and therefore benefit from training with other professionals in the field as well as building a relationship with their teachers and choreographers. This could eventually lead to the form-ation of professional dancers and the creation of Malta’s own National Dance Company.
In conjunction with this grand affair, two other social events are being organized that are open to the public. A post theatre performance dinner will be held at the Phoenicia Hotel on Friday, 4 August at 10.30pm. This is a fantastic opportunity for dance lovers to meet the dancers of the Ballet D’Europe and their artistic director in a relaxed atmosphere.
The dinner will cost Lm8.95 per person and reservations can be made by ringing Tel: 2122-5241, ext: 4084.
Another event being organised by the Dance Council is a beach party at Paradise Bay Lido on Sunday. Reser-vations can be made direct at the Paradise Bay Lido.