On Saturday 30 April, the Malta premiere Home was presented at the Manoel Theatre.  It is about the life history of man recounted through dance. This production was the work of the Dance Ensemble ŻfinMalta. As an ensemble, it seeks to explore the Euro-Mediterranean roots of Malta through dance. The name of the performance itself, Home, explains the concept behind this representation. The dance ensemble wants to discuss birth, childhood, love, tragedy and finally death. The choreography was by MavinKhoo and the eight dancers who took part in this show. Basically, the entire presentation was an ode to sexual diversity. Through dance, Khoo and his dancers sought to interchange with the audience on a number of existential questions that adult man (and woman) starts to ask on reaching adulthood. What are the objectives of life? Why was I born?

I used the term 'show' specifically. The cynic would watch and interpret the performance as a parody of modern life or an ode to homosexuality. Worse still, it may appear too academic; an intellectual performance that seeks to interpret a number of fundamental questions put forward by the French Philosopher Jacques Foucault in his book about The History of Western Sexuality. The professional way these dancers developed their choreography defies all fears of academic snobbism and elitism.

The presentation starts with the representation of the birth of man. The birth is discussed through themes taken both from Western Christianity and Oriental Philosophy. But birth can also take the form of resurrection or reincarnation.

The opening choreography is first inspired from Victorian England. Foucault discussed at length how our modern view of sexuality has been conditioned by the Victorians. Foucault speaks about what he calls the ‘repressive theory', how sexual desires were repressed and this repression led to a double life and double standards. People start living a lie. What Khoo and his dancers sought first to convey to the audience are snap shots of this Victorian world. The choreography itself was inspired from black and white photos of this bygone age.

Repression can take different forms. Peer pressure is one form. Whether it is birth or rebirth, this phase is always represented by nakedness. The man, who is just born (or reborn), is immediately dressed like all the rest. He is made to wear the same clothes and a big black artificial nose that is worn by the other dancers, who are representing the rest of humanity. Like the black and white photos of the Victorian age, he too, together with the rest of the dancers is dressed in black and white. The artificial nose reminds the audience of the fake noses used by clowns at the circus. But this is different. It is a serious one. On a personal basis, it reminded me of Pinocchio’s nose and parody.

Yet, Khoo and the rest of the dancers want to go beyond the Victorians. Victorian England meant also the pangs of industrialization and the creation of a new social capital. Charlie Chaplin is one of the best interpreters of the new social sufferings of the Industrial age. Chaplin transformed his contemporary realities of poverty into a song of beauty. His black and white films are extremely poetical as they are political. The dance choreography moves on to follow Chaplin’s early films. Chaplin’s movements are not simple gestures of an actor but his gesticulations and walking resemble more the movement of a modern dance actor than that of an ordinaryman. This performance made me realize that Chaplin’s acting is also a precursor of modern dance. Like when watching Chaplin’s films, the audience had the opportunity of the occasional laughter resulting from banal situations. In the film The Tramp, Chaplin discusses the search of love and this leads him to tragic-comic situations, which these dancers brilliantly reinterpreted through their choreography.

Yet, the performance did not stick to the early twentieth-century films. Life goes on. The early twentieth-century predicaments changed when the same century came to an end. The fundamental questions about love are now focused on issues of sexual identities.

Chaplin makes space for Stanley Kubric. Choreography gets inspiration from the film Eyes Wide Shut. Kubric’s sex, love, music and ecstasy are all again beautifully presented through dance. At some points, the dance turns sensual. Erotic movements are performed in a black backdrop, of dim light, where the back stage becomes part of the dancing floor and the producer of this performance wanted to give us a cold shower to quell our sexual desires which their sensual dances are meant to arouse, the theatres props, stored in the backstage, become part and parcel of the set.

I don’t know whether I should consider it irony or not that when I went to watch this performance, Valletta was aflame as il-Beltin (the residents of Valletta) were out on the streets celebrating for having won the local football league. The performance provided the anti-climax for these celebrations.

The performance ends with the sound of a shot from a revolver accompanied by Beethoven’s famous Song of Joy. While the producer and dancers use this music to celebrate sexual diversity and homosexuality, I cannot but give this ending a different reading. Beethoven’s song is also the anthem of the European Union. Diversity is now strongly under attack. It is not sexual diversity that is being questioned but the rise of “racial diversity”. The Europe of nations is at a crossroads. Migration in Europe is leading to the re-establishment of boundaries. Schengen is being questioned, as is the European unity. The shot at the end of the performance reminded me more of the proclaimed and unceremonious death of this Union, rather than to the wonderful future that men and women of the European continent were promised by Europe’s Progressive Liberals. Europe has failed to become one home for all the people of this continent.