Upon its founding, ŻfinMalta, Malta’s national dance company, promised to inject the local dance scene with innovation and creativity, with a focus on bringing a fresh perspective on contemporary dance to the general public.
The company’s latest production, Rosemary Lee’s Threaded Fine, undoubtedly delivers on this promise.
Dance aficionados will already be familiar with Rosemary Lee and her work. Known for her considerable range in dance productions, over the past three decades the choreographer, director and performer has created works that resonate with their target audience, and create a sense of intimacy and familiarity with the dance’s surroundings. In short, her work can only be described as profoundly human and intimate.
It is this humanity and intimacy in Lee’s style which led ŻfinMalta to commission her for their latest project, in collaboration with the Valletta Cultural Agency. The brief for Threaded Fine was to create a large-scale, cross-generational piece which blurs the line between professional dancers and those of us who are less nimble on our feet.
The result was the birth of a five-hour long performance, during which twenty-four performers will give twenty-four solo performances, in the form of a quasi-relay one after the other; the solos unfold before the audience, who may come and go freely throughout the dance. The juxtaposition of the performance’s length and the solo nature of the performances creates a work of art which is both personal and extensive.
The casting for Threaded Fine is also no random choice, as the dance company assembled a cast of professional and non-professional dancers, with ages ranging from eight to 76.
The wide age group is of symbolic significance to the performance, which will be opened by Sarah Angie Agius, the youngest performer, followed by her companions, in order of age, until it is brought to a close by Josephine Burden, the eldest member of the cast. The audience will also be able to enjoy a solo performance by the choreographer herself, Rosemary Lee, in itself a rare occasion.
The simple, clean unfolding of the performance, in order of the dancers’ age, explores Lee’s source of inspiration for Threaded Fine: life itself, its cyclical nature and rhythms threading us all together, while at the same time keeping us soberly separate. It invites its audience to feel truly part of the performance through the knowledge that the performance is equally composed of professional and amateur dancers joining forces to express Threaded Fine’s vision. This mirrors perfectly ŻfinMalta’s vision, under the artistic direction of Paolo Mangiola, to make contemporary dance as accessible and inspiring and possible to all.
Accompanying Lee’s choreography is a specially commissioned sound score by Isaac Lee-Kronick, a London-based musician andrising star in the alt-pop genre. The esteemed artist will also be performing his score live during the dance, further bringing art and audience closer to each other.
ŻfinMalta has also roped in Scott deLahunta to document the entire production. DeLahunta, a professor of dance at the Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University, is also a co-director and project leader of the Motion Bank project, which focuses on the creation of online digital scores, in collaboration with celebrated guest choreographers such as Lee. Through this project, unique performances and choreographic approaches are crystallised and accessible for all through the online medium, thus creating a vast choreographic resource, for present and future generations.
Supported by the British Council, Department of Dance Studies, School of Performing Arts, University of Malta and the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Threaded Fine will take place on Saturday, February 1, at the Valletta Campus Theatre, from 4pm until approximately 9pm. Tickets are available through www.kultura.mt.