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MT September 16 2018

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CULTURE THEATRE | SUNDAY • 16 SEPTEMBER 2018 maltatoday 13 hundred thousand people in the country, at once, and by the direct participation of our President in this fight against the strong corruption that exists at the moment in my country. I am deeply ashamed, like never after 1989, of the two parties that at the moment are forming our government and I consider that their leaders should not have the right to represent my country at this point in any European context. The abuses and corruption are distorting and destroying mankind's values in many countries at this moment, and we have the duty to strongly oppose that this will happen. Have you encountered any problems working with Maltese artists and the organisers? Working with a group of eight actresses and two actors I was quite interested about how the feminine strings will create the vibration and the music of this universe around the character Grimod. Stressing and requiring the directness of the poems and their sensuality we had created almost polyphonic moments through repetitiveness and interweaving verses. I could work in this way with a very sensitive and committed group of actors that had the openness and curiosity, the courage and the joy to express and experiment in a beautiful way all the material we were enriching on our table. The process of rehearsals was very intense and short, considering the fact that in less than five weeks we had to create a new piece that was equally poetic, visual and physical in a site specific enviroment. Working with the actors at the beginning of our rehearsals in an intimate space like a studio gave the group the trusted substance needed in the big outdoor space. This was a truly challenging project for Teatru Malta, as well as for our whole artistic team. I strongly believe that Sean Buhagiar, the artistic director, and his team can create a strong National Theatre Company if there is a continuous awareness and attention to the needs of the artists and society. In your opinion, is Valletta living up to its status as European Capital of Culture for 2018? What would you have liked to see more of? Unfortunately I did not have much time to follow the cultural programme of Valletta 2018. I hope and believe that there are good projects and programmes that involve some major educational and cultural components that can be continued in the coming years. I guess one of the important issues for a cultural capital is to enrich and spread in a wider context than the national one, the awareness on the long term of both the participants and audience for the essential threads of the mankind values. In 1996, together with Iulian Baltatescu, you set up TOACA, a non-governmental non- profit organisation focusing on contemporary art and hoping to serve the community through art and culture. Was TOACA a success? And how do you see the model developing further in the years to come? In 1996 I had created my own company Toaca, and since 1995 I am part of Teatrul Mic Company in Bucharest, a repertory state theatre of 42 actors. I continued all these years to work in both ways and I have tried to influence and change as much as I could some parts that were not functioning either in the independent field or in the state belonged one. Actually, the first Toaca's project was a theatre piece I directed at MITP Valletta, in 1996. It was called Dorde (based on a Romanian myth) and it was collaboration between Toaca, Teatru Anon and Odd&Even Theatre Company from Moscow. At the time Toaca was established, it was quite a pioneer on the independent scene in Romania. For seven years we had a studio in the centre of Bucharest, we had wonderful educational and artistic projects addressed mainly at young artists and the audience and we had fights with the corrupt politicians that took over the building at the moment the potential of the space was revealed through our projects. We lost the space through falsified contracts by the Mayor of the 3rd District of Bucharest and his Council but we did not lose our creativity, hope and joy. And I was inspired in some of the projects I had done by the corrupted figures I have met at that time. I have learned that Toaca is not a building but a state of mind and freedom. We are doing from time to time projects within the frame of Toaca, but I have mainly focused lately on what I could create as an artist and not as a producer. However I continue to strongly encourage the young artists to come together and to create a solid common voice that will give the promises of the changes for what is not functioning within a society. Can Romanian and Maltese artists find enough common ground to encourage greater cooperation between the two countries in the future? It was a pleasure for me to work with the actors from different contemporary theatre companies, like The Rubberbodies Collective, Santwarju and Teatru Anon (I knew and worked before just with Anon). I was impressed by the seriousness, hard working and sensitivity of all actors. And yes, there is quite a lot of common ground for continuing the collaboration between the two countries. Personally I consider that in the future, this project about food will have a natural need of continuing and developing into something like a second phase. Do you envisage working in Malta again? Being the second time that I am working in Malta, I certainly know that I have a beautiful connection with this space and culture, and most probably I will come back. appetite The damselfish is doubtlessly one of the most common fish in our shallow waters, perhaps at its most evident around this time of year, as the thousands of young begin to grow a bit and venture out of their sheltering rocks. The fry (alas!) now lose their bright neon blue colour and go all dark like their parents, which is why the species is known as ċawla in Maltese, this be- ing also the name of the jackdaw, a grey-black bird. Damselfish are gregarious animals, so you almost always see them in shoals, sometimes numbering thousands. They love to hang around a metre or two below the surface, moving about but not too far, and intermittently shooting out their extendable mouth – a split second action – to gobble floating plankton that's invisible to our eyes. Damselfish are not particularly afraid of people, so they will let you approach and even reach out and almost touch them. To float awhile weightless amidst this silent mass of life is almost a religious experience. 626. DAMSELFISH Visit Friends of the Earth's website for more information about our work, as well as for information about how to join us. You can also support us by sending us a donation - www.foemalta.org/donate GREEN IDEA OF THE WEEK 529: Check out all our events for September by visiting www.foemalta.org/nature Text Victor Falzon Photo Desirée Falzon

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