Date and Time:
Thursday 1st December 2022, 8pm
Friday 2nd December 2022, 8pm
Saturday 3rd December 2022, 8pm
Sunday 4th December 2022, 7pm

Responding to the theme ‘New Futures’ and the question ‘what will the future look like in 100 years?’ ŻfinMalta, under the artistic direction of Paolo Mangiola, invites six emerging choreographers and artists working with movement, who are based in Malta, to create a series of solos and duets with the company dancers.

The project is one of the company’s biennial signature programmes, presented in collaboration with Spazju Kreattiv. ŻfinMade exemplifies ŻfinMalta’s ongoing commitment to cultivating contemporary dance practice in Malta. The project highlights a commitment to fostering and nurturing local artists, and bringing them into contact with the country’s leading institutions. ŻfinMalta provides each of the six choreographers with the resources to develop and create a new work, including mentorship by the company’s artistic director and staff. ŻfinMade culminates in four evenings of dance performances showcasing the work and introducing the choreographers and dancers to new audiences.

Click Here for the Digital Catalogue

Performance running order:

Thursday 1st & Saturday 3rd

Run by Hyenas, Romeo Roxman Gatt
Humains!, Chakib Zidi
Fruitful Darkness, Rebecca Camilleri

Friday 2nd & Sunday 4th

In Pursuit of Poles and Emperors, Emma Louise Walker
Capsule, Charlene Galea
Ones, Simon Riccardi-Zani

REBECCA CAMILLERI

Fruitful Darkness is a solo exploring the fertile void. A ritual honours a shadow of what still lives. Between what was and what follows, there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. A metamorphic dance embraces the ending and reveals the blooming.

Dancer: Pearl Calleja

Rebecca Camilleri is a performance maker and bodywork practitioner, based in Mexico since 2016. She graduated with a First Degree in BA Choreography and Visual Art Practices from Dartington College of Arts, UK and a Masters in English (Modern and Contemporary Literature and Criticism) from the University of Malta. Rebecca is a founding member of the rubberbodies collective and has been engaged in several performance, community and educational projects. She is currently studying Gestalt psychotherapy and is inspired to use movement as a way of integrating emotions in therapy.

CHARLENE GALEA

Capsule poses the question: In the future, what will be left of the land that produces fresh food today, and will anyone be here to work the land? It proposes that each day, humans will wake up to the instruction to swallow a set of food capsules, thus erasing the sensual and social aspects of food, and explores the impact of this on the dancer’s body and psyche.

Dancer: Felix Deepen

Charlene Galea is a multidisciplinary artist navigating the online and offline worlds. She often uses her own body as a tool, and an act of resistance, through live performance and photography with a focus on the political and on the spaces in which we exist. Previous exhibitions have explored issues around social media, female sexuality, rave culture, mental health, vaccines, and even agriculture. Charlene holds a bachelor’s degree in Creative Directions for Fashion, and a Master of Digital Fine Arts. She is currently travelling and collaborating in performance workshops at the Tic Tac Centre and Impulstanz to further develop her practice in movement and storytelling.

ROMEO ROXMAN GATT

Run by Hyenas imagines a future where bodies are no longer policed, where masculinity and femininity are no longer prescribed by obsolete stereotypes. There is no hierarchy, body and soul are in harmony. Human, animal, and machine become one. This solo presents a dancer who has developed a passion for transgression, asking audiences to reconsider their understanding of how bodies and the environments that frame and define them can be reimagined.

Dancer: Keith Micallef

Romeo Roxman Gatt is a multidisciplinary artist who explores sexuality, identity, gender, love and consumption within his practice. For a while now, the artist has been working with themes of humanising and interacting with consumer objects, making the inanimate iconic and fetishised. He is also interested in documenting and archiving trans and queer experiences and has recently launched a new project called Rosa Kwir. This project revolves around alternative notions of masculinity, bringing together stories of Maltese trans men, non-binary & masculine of centre people. He is also co-founder of the first queer focused project space and contemporary art gallery in Malta. Romeo has an MA in Visual Communication from the Royal College of Art and was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries, ICA, London, and Bluecoat Liverpool (2016).

SIMON RICCARDI-ZANI

Ones. One. One or one. One and one. One on one. One in one. One with one. One for one. Is there a place for interactions and differences in a world where individualism has reached its climax? Is the randomness of our connections enough to pass as humanity? Are our differences present enough to pass for diversity? This duet contemplates a new model by searching for poetry within a new reality.

Dancers: Lotte La Haye & Amber Van Veen

Simon Riccardi-Zani was born in 1998 in Nice, France. He started classical dance aged eight and furthered his studies with programmes at Rosella-Hightower Dance School (Cannes), Princess Grace Academy (Monaco), and Lyon National Conservatoire. Simon began professional classical training at the Opera Ballet School of Paris and later trained in contemporary dance at the Paris National Conservatoire (CNSMDP). He has danced repertoire including Kurt Jooss, Olivier Dubois, Rainer Behr and Pina Baush. Workshops have included Anne Teresa De Keersmaker processes, Gaga techniques, and repertoire by Akram Khan, Angelin Preljocaj, and William Forsythe. Simon joined ŻfinMalta in 2019.

EMMA LOUISE WALKER

In Pursuit of Poles and Emperors is inspired by the 1922 publication ‘The Worst Journey in the World,’ an autobiographical account by Apsley Cherry-Garrard of Scott’s doomed Antarctic expedition. A story otherwise known for its failures; it succeeds in capturing the abundance of all that had yet to be discovered. A century later, much of our planet’s surface is known, but a new playing field has opened beyond it, where stores of the undiscovered, undocumented, and unconquered have been replenished.

Dancers: Lidia Cariasole & Jérémie Lafon

Emma Louise Walker graduated with a First-Class Honours degree in Dance and Performance from the Central School of Ballet in London, having first choreographed in 2013 in a collaboration with Central Saint Martins. Emma toured the UK with DeNada Dance Theatre’s production ‘Toro,’ by Carlos Pons Guerra, and was then a professional dancer with ŻfinMalta National Dance Company until 2021, working with choreographers including Paolo Mangiola, Jacopo Godani and Rosemary Lee. In her current role with ŻfinMalta she co-ordinates education and outreach opportunities and creates educational resources for the company as well as for audiences who want to learn more about contemporary dance

CHAKIB ZIDI

Humains! presents a world where all visible borders have disappeared, and all continents are attached or merged. Cultures and languages mix, forming one nation, with one single identity. With greater flexibility and opportunity our identities — or how we choose to define and see ourselves — become more abstract. Herein lies the problem, for no matter how we approach ‘identity’, such as through art, philosophy, or psychology, it remains fluid, beyond simple definition. Can this new identity tackle issues like migration, gender equality, social justice, conflict and war?

Dancers: Nik Folini & Tara Dalli

Chakib Zidi is a Tunisian artist based in Malta. He trained in both ballet and contemporary dance at the National Ballet of Tunisia and the TRAMONI-CAPARROS Russian Ballet School of Tunis. From 2009-2011 he was a teacher and choreographer at the National Ballet of Tunis, and in 2011 at Studios Ikaass Dance company. Chakib also worked as a dance instructor and lecturer at High Institute for Dramatic Art of Tunis and is currently a guest lecturer teaching dance in the Theatre Studies department of the University of Malta.

Commissions include Koppin, Valletta European Capital of Culture 2018, ARC Allied Rainbow, and Festivals Malta, all exploring themes of migration, borders, and minorities. He is an artist and LGBTQ activist interested in creating dance focused on personal expression, collective freedom, identity, gender fluidity, borders, and commitment to healing justice.