Back to Partying in the Blackbox

Like The Party Has Been Cancelled by Ira Brand Cement 2022 - photo by Cloakture .

I am in the black box “after several Covid-postponements”. I can finally experience watching a performance collectively as part of an audience. “It feels like there’s still much to discover about the work, and I’m excited to share it with a home crowd and open up some dialogues about the experience of it.” Ira writes in her mail-shot before the Amsterdam premiere at Frascati of LIKE THE PARTY HAS BEEN CANCELLED

Gates and Gatekeepers

Goats_at_Port_Real_

So at the gates of the airport, I found myself thinking about gates and gatekeepers. I often find myself pondering about various aspects of cultural policy especially when I visit the micro-cosmos of the Maltese scene.

Outsiders Looking In

Dutch mill facing the flood of 1926. Grouw, the Netherlands, 1926.. Collection Spaarnestad - Nationaal Archief

he remembers a passage in his school textbook called The Legend of Holland. The centre character is a young boy from the countryside who turns to be a national hero after saving the country from flooding by blocking a leak in the dam with his finger and staying there for days and nights before he was found and the dam was fixed. My father says this story is imprinted in his mind and this is how he sees Holland. I said it’s the Netherlands now

il-Qamar

1967_in_Malta_(Brian-Harrington-Spier)

“…jien is-soltu nħares lejn il-qamar. Għax il-qamar, meta jkun ġej maltemp ikollu l-qiegħa. Jekk ikun ġej ftit ikollu ftit. Mhux ikun ċar bħal ma hija l-bozza imma jkollu qiegħa miegħu. Sinjali li jkun hemm xi riħ. Imma dan kellu qiegħa imma jien peress li kont flgħaxija għall-għasafar, mort u ma ħaristx ’l hemm. Li niżel… mhux taqtir niżel. Qisu bil-bramel. Però kien hemm tmien trombi fuq il-baħar. Ngħidulhom ‘bżieżel tal-ajru’. Beżżul meta tkun sħaba u tniżżilha hekk.”