Writers' Reflections - Part 2

Dance Festival Malta Writer's Critic Platform

Where’s the La La in the World of Bla Bla? by Rochelle Gatt

By Regina Egle Liotta Catrambone

Photo: Elisa von Brockdorff

On the top floor of MICAS Malta’s, contemporary art space housed in a restored 17th-century military fort overlooking Floriana.

Rochelle Gatt’s “Where’s the La La in the World of Bla Bla?” unfolded in the middle of a sweltering heatwave. The performance took place in what was once an ospizio, a historical shelter for the poor, elderly, and vulnerable, now transformed into a space for artistic inquiry. The space still held traces of that past, in the texture of its walls, in the weight of its majestic silence.

Several audience members were overcome by the heat and slipped out. But those who remained were drawn into something raw, surprising, and quietly confrontational. Directed, created, and performed by Gatt, with co-creation by Edmilson Zammit, the work blurred boundaries between dance, theatre, and participatory action from the public.

The entire scenography, crafted from black and white plastic trash bags, cardboard boxes, and discarded packaging, set the tone: a world built from the things society throws away, and in this country, not just objects, but relationships too. Gatt used these humble materials as embodied reminders of what we discard. Her movements were absurd, fragile, urgent. The objects became garments, burdens, companions. And throughout, co-creator Edmilson Zammit served as a quiet yet persistent presence, a kind of courier of waste, repeatedly delivering new bags of trash. The message was clear: the waste keeps coming, faster than we can process it. At one point, the audience was invited to help catalogue the items, as if archiving the detritus of collective neglect.

This wasn’t just a performance.It was a call to account. An unsettling reflection on waste, ecological amnesia, and what it means to live on a small island in a world teetering under the weight of its own consumption. It asked, quietly but insistently, where our sense of social responsibility has gone, and how we might recover it through action, attention, and care.

Gatt didn’t offer answers. She offered presence, mess, and an invitation to feel what we usually ignore. Amidst the daily “bla bla,” she asked us to listen for the “la la”—a quieter note of care, memory, and responsibility. A murmur from the world of our parents, when things were mended, reused, and cherished, before plastic wrapped itself around everything.

And what did we take home? A question held in softness, and maybe a quiet reminder that even one less bag, one less careless habit, matters.Because sometimes 99 trash bags are already better than 100—a small drop in the ocean, yes, but a clean one. And enough drops, if we care, can start to shift the tide.

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Trans(itions)/s by Dorka Kesmarki

By Regina Egle Liotta Catrambone

Photo: Elisa von Brockdorff

Hungarian artist Dorka Kesmarki lit the stage on fire with her viscerally bold and politically charged solo piece Trans(itions)/s, performed at Spazju Kreattiv during Dance Festival Malta.

Set in the intimate, circular black-box theatre, the performance unfolded under hot pink and red lights, with the audience seated closely around the stage, no space for distance, no room for indifference.

Dorka’s appearance was striking: a black bodysuit, knee high socks, and deliberately exaggerated makeup reminiscent of drag queens, a powerful tribute to queer identity and resistance. Her choreography moved between extremes: grinding and twerking with fierce defiance one moment, then collapsing the next. The multiple expressions on her face,held nothing back.

Throughout the piece, she screamed. 

Not once, but several times, guttural screams that tore through the space. In one unforgettable moment, bent backwards in a contorted arch, she let out a howl that froze the room.

Her voice, like her body, was both weapon and wound, protest and purge.

The work is a bold protest against Hungary’s suppression of LGBTQ+ rights and the banning of Pride.

It is a scream of freedom against political and cultural repression.

Let us ask ourselves: how long will we still be allowed to protest?

If even in countries like the U.S. once seen as lands of freedom, rights are being slowly erased, including the right to protest, then Kesmarki’s piece feels frighteningly timely.

We often forget how free we are until we begin to lose those freedoms.

Let’s especially remember: we women did not inherit our rights at no cost.

Dorka’s performance is a reminder to never grow silent.

To keep moving. To keep screaming.

Brava, Dorka!

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Find Your Yellow – Kim Ellul

By Lara Zammit

Photo: Elisa von Brockdorff

Find Your Yellow by choreographer and dancer Kim Ellul in collaboration with Alexandra Raach and Clare Smith is an overt exaltation of friendship.

The choreography begins with a dancer lying alone in a puddle of light. Others emerge but are disjointed, dancing one at a time making way for each other, giving each other space even if what they might need is connection. They are bathed in pale, blue light – cold and defensive. Nevertheless, there is magnetism in the air.

Letting their guard down, the three embrace, altering the hue from blue to red. This new dawn lifts their spirits. Their faces, once serious and grimacing, soften with smiles and laughter. When a braid of yellow fabric descends among them, they see it as an invitation for play. They giggle with glee, each now fortified by the yellow fabric they wear as a skirt – a symbol of their shared friendship. A podcast meditation plays, and uplifting music. Their unmitigated, naïve joy is contagious.

In a final act, the three walk to a different side of the stage, each drawing an audience member to her feet. They embrace their friends with tears of gratitude in their eyes. 

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Għabex – Abigail Agius

By Lara Zammit

Photo: Elisa von Brockdorff

A setting sun bathes the theatre in golden light. Dusk has fallen and time is short. A dancer (Niels Plotard in a choreography by Abigail Agius) begins pacing, first in silence, then in confusion. Trying to find his way, he takes steps forwards and then backtracks, sometimes hesitatingly, at other times with determination.

Twentieth century minimalist music begins playing, repetitive and urgent. The dancer’s moves mimic the pattern of the music, forwards and backwards, circling the stage each time with slight, subtle variation, the way time repeats itself.

Dusk falls with slight agitation. We hold the last tendrils of light tightly, perhaps in an attempt to salvage the day. Night heralds a known end and unknown beginning. As darkness looms, the music increases its urgency and the dancer’s movements grow large and more frantic. Then as night begins to fall and end of day is imminent, the dancer slows into resignation, if not, perhaps, relief.

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About the Authors

Regina Egle Liotta Catrambone

Regina Egle Liotta Catrambone is a humanitarian leader, migration expert, and advocate for safe and legal routes for migration. As co-founder and former  director of MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) and founder and President of MAEC (Mediterranean Aid Education Centre), she has spearheaded life-saving humanitarian efforts worldwide. Through MOAS, she led the world’s first private search and rescue (SAR) operations, saving thousands of migrants in the Mediterranean and expanding aid missions to crisis zones in Libya, Bangladesh, Yemen, and Ukraine.

With MAEC, she continues to support vulnerable communities by providing food aid, education, and medical assistance. She is also Chairperson of Tangiers Group, overseeing strategic operations across multiple industries. A recognised thought leader in migration and humanitarian advocacy, Regina has spoken at UN forums, TEDx events, and international conferences.

Her achievements include launching the #SafeAndLegalRoutes campaign, publishing Raccogliere il Mare con un Cucchiaino (2023), and receiving prestigious awards such as the Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana and Malta’s Medal of the Republic. She has extensive field experience in SAR missions, refugee camps, and humanitarian crisis response. Fluent in multiple languages, she combines strategic leadership with hands-on humanitarian engagement, making a profound impact on global migration and aid initiatives.

Lara Zammit

Lara Zammit is the arts and culture section editor at The Sunday Times of Malta. Apart from overseeing section coverage, she also contributes reviews and features across artistic genres, as well as opinion articles and editorials for the Times of Malta, where she also serves as a sub editor. She has contributed to numerous academic and non-academic publications and delivered a talk as part of ŻfinMalta’s Movimento series in 2023 on the intersection between writing and choreography. She graduated summa cum laude with a master’s degree in philosophy in 2019 from the University of Malta with a dissertation examining the preposition ‘with’ and the metaphysics of relation. Her research interests include those of metaphysics, aesthetics and classical philology as well as book conservation and papercraft. 

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This project is an initiative by Festivals Malta and Arts Council Malta, held as part of Dance Festival Malta. Supported by Valletta Design Cluster and Valletta Cultural Agency.