a collaboration with Mavin Khoo dance
Commisioned by The Ministry of Education, Employment and the Family

74, Splendid, Strait Street, Valletta
13th November 2011

Duration
1 hour

Synopsis

A performance installation to mark the 50th anniversaryof the death of Malta’s national poet Dun Karm Psaila. Dun Karm spent days of solitude in his home in Valletta from which emerged a series of patriotic sonnets with spiritual references. Four bodies encompassed Dun Karm’s poetry and inhabited the spaces in Splendid house on Strada Stretta. They revisit Malta’s identity, taking on the concept of gender at a time when religion and politics stringently shaped the culture.

“It was somewhat ironic that the three canaries in their three cages were so still and so silent. One needed to observe each bird intently to ascertain it was a real bird and not a stuffed one. These birds, typically full of song and vitality, seemed rapt in silence listening to the poetry or watching the action inspired by the words and emotions of our national poet, Dun Karm.”

Canaries fallen silent – The Times,  Wednesday November 16, 2011

Photography by Darrin Zammit Lupi -www.darrinzammitlupi.com
Performers:

Chris Galea
Mavin Khoo
Jacob Piccinino
Ninette Micallef

Director 
Jimmy Grima

Rehearsal director
Rebecca Camilleri

Sound artist
Mario Sammut

Installation artist
 Matthew Pandolfino

Creative writer
Simon Sultana Harkins