Writers' Reflections - Part 3
- festivalsmalta
- Jul 28
- 8 min read
Updated: Jul 29
Dance Festival Malta Writer's Critic Platform
Uchronia – Marc Brew & Hayley Earlam
By Regina Egle Liotta Catrambone
In Uchronia, choreographer Marc Brew and performer Hayley Earlam present an intimate and nuanced duet that explores memory, alternative timelines, and human connection through movement.
Co-created with Brazilian artists Natalia Mallo and Giselle Calazans, the piece unfolds like a series of emotional echoes, each gesture a possible past, each contact a different future.
Marc Brew, shaped by a life changing accident, brings a sculptural, poetic presence to the stage. His custom-designed, pyramid like, wheelchair is not just a means of movement, it is a striking visual element in itself, a sculptural object that feels like an extension of his choreographic language.
It enhances the piece’s architecture, becoming both a partner and a pedestal, elevating the physical storytelling in unexpected and powerful ways.
His duet with Earlam is charged with physical and emotional complexity, sensual, vulnerable, commanding. Earlam repeatedly rides Brew’s head and shoulders in a provocative gesture, her pelvis pressing down with deliberate sensuality.
The moment suggests more than contact; it evokes an act of power, of erotic assertion, as if the dance slips momentarily into private ritual, daring the public gaze to linger. Their roles shift fluidly, one guiding, the other responding, until intimacy and control blur and reverse.
A tender highlight sees Brew gently pressing his head to her stomach, cat-like, affectionate.
Uchronia transcends traditional dance forms, challenging assumptions about physicality, power, and presence. It invites us to reimagine what dance can be, how movement, intimacy, and storytelling can emerge from every body, regardless of form or limitation.
Brew and Earlam show that creativity thrives not in spite of challenge, but through it.
Uchronia is a powerful reminder: limitation is not the opposite of freedom, it can be the source of it.
Forget Me Not – Catarina and Tiago
By Lara Zammit
The dance duo Catarina Casqueiro and Tiago Coelho’s Forget Me Not is a frightening reflection on memory and its loss – what remains of us when we forget who we are.
Opening with nostalgic music and Tiago dancing in the spotlight, we feel as though the dancer is transported back in time to a place of belonging and ease. He dances steadily and softly to the music as though savouring a moment of clarity. Then, a sudden shift: Tiago and Catarina are sprawled on the floor, crawling in agony towards each other.
They hang on to each other for dear life. Energy increases and everything speeds up. We feel agitation creeping into our bellies. Sudden breaks of light disorient them before they regain composure. They seem as though on the cusp of death hanging on to life.
An agonising scene in director Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation (2011) comes to mind. It shows a wife confronting her husband over his father’s Alzheimer’s: “Does he even realise you are his son?” she asks him. The husband answers: “I know he is my father”.
Vulture – Ching-Ying Chien
By Lara Zammit
As the theatre soars to the music of a sarod (Indian lute) played by Soumik Datta, dancer and choreographer Ching-Ying Chien emerges as though folded onto herself. Contorted and avian, the dancer fills us with horror and awe. Her body is stretched seemingly beyond its natural limits, evoking our constant striving to surpass ourselves.
Her movements are both human and animal, unnatural and disquieting. She looks as though she is possessed. We recoil as she bangs her head and slams her body in loud thuds. Yet, we relish in her strange, uncanny movements, curious to see what is possible and what we dare not attempt with our own bodies.
The sound of swarms of flies signals that death is in the air: something rotting and putrid. The musician casts out his voice and sets the dancer to movement. More voices emerge and stir her further. Finally, she recedes into the darkness… For all our toils and ambitions to transcend nature, we are all bound to it irrevocably.
Somiglianza – ŻfinMalta
By Lara Zammit
Somiglianza plays homage to Vaslav Nijinsky’s modern ballet L’après-midi d’un faune set to Claude Debussy’s symphonic poem Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. Choreographers Mattia Russo and Antonio De Rosa from Kor’sia reinvent this ballet into striking snippets rich with knowing irony, all the while showcasing the history of dance in the West through archfully choreographed images.
Despite ŻfinMalta’s contemporary rendition, there is an archaic feel to the piece, as though we are watching a scene out of Greek myth. As cicadas fill the air, we see dancers prancing across the stage like a team of synchronised swimmers. As they march, they see a similarly clad fellow lying on the floor. What unfolds is a vision of a young faun flirting with and chasing the nymphs around the stage. The subtext is distinctively erotic.
Revisiting this famous classic provides more space for contemporary audiences to connect with the playful flirtation they behold. We recognise the push and pull in their interactions, the seduction and uncertainty they grapple with. Our modern romantic pursuits are not all that dissimilar from the ones depicted as artworks on ancient Greek vases.
I Need To – Clémence Juglet
By Lara Zammit
As choreographer and dancer Clémence Juglet walks onstage with legs jittering and quivering, we imagine she is on the verge of collapse. She wobbles forth but finds her footing, erupting in an unexpected burst of energy. Her legs reveal her exhaustion with every pause she makes, but she does not break for long.
Set to the upbeat percussive pieces ‘Tuesday’ and ‘Wednesday’ by Leon Afterbeat, the dancer exudes stamina and perseverance, even perhaps against her better judgement. A ticking sound unmasks the antagonist that pursues her – time panics her into over-exertion. Her hands mimic those of a clock’s oppressive passage through time, as though her body has been hijacked.
At times she loses steam and at others she pushes through. I feel in my body the anxious anticipation of looming deadlines and late-night scrambles. I recognise the dancer as she jumps always higher and then stumbles. I see how indeed we are our own worst enemies.
Are you Guilty? – Min Kim
By Lara Zammit
Choreographer and dancer Min Kim, accompanied onstage by Lee Changmin, creates a deceptively light-hearted slapstick piece about two men coming to blows.
We see them poised around a table as though in a freeze-frame of an action movie, their faces contorted in silent screams. They undulate between slow motion and heart-racing acrobatics, banging on the table with their palms and each other’s heads. This first encounter with the audience surprises us into nervous giggles.
I feel as though I’m watching something between the Muppets and Buster Keaton. Amid the dancers’ physical prowess and gripping narrative, I barely register there is no music playing. The percussion of their slamming against the table reverberates in our chests as we sit wondering who will emerge the victor.
Lulled into laughter, we pay no great heed to the violence we are witnessing. Winner takes all in this dog-eat-dog world, and we are just monkeys that see no evil.
Matomari No Nai - Catharina and Thiago
By Ylenia Callus
Two bodies appear from behind the curtain onto the dark stage. Separated, they fall into a fetal position and remain still, dormant until the light emerges. One awakes and wobbles forward, its movement, speared by the shoulders, is creeping forward into the light. As the light shines on this crumpled figure’s back it seems to yearn for a connection and to communicate a shared experience: two bodies in one space.
Matomari no Nai as choreographed by Catharina and Thiago “seeks to illustrate the symbiosis between two beings and the shared experience of existence, expressed through the movement of bodies that dance as if speaking.”
A glance, a glare, a playful interlude where hands seem to speak, embrace, then reject each other. Stillness, darkness, then light from a torch scanning Catherina, who in that moment removes her top, liberated from societal censorship, revealing just enough. Her spinal cord glistens and, through the frustrated posture of her arms we see a monster awaken. The shadowy silhouette of the distressed Catharina emerges as if a Nosferatu figure is overpowering her. The thought of solitude plagues her as the vortex of the dimming light threatens her very existence.
Parentology - Valentina Cauchi
By Ylenia Callus
“If you are happy and you know it clap your hands. If you are angry and you know it stomp your feet”. Parenthood is an important step for most couples or individuals , and especially for mothers. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a step by step guide to what parenthood may feel like.
This original choreography by Valentina Cauchi and beautifully interpreted by Martina Zammit truly resonates with the human aspect of motherhood and the conversations it inspires. A recorded description of what motherhood’s sentiments are is playing throughout the performance, making us believe we are in dialogue with Martina over a cup of coffee.
The use of a soft toy — sometimes cradled lovingly as a baby, at other times prompting her to flee across the stage — demonstrates the abrupt disruption of predictability that motherhood creates
In many ways the performance felt like a warm hug to all mothers and acts as a reassurance that parenthood isn’t always perfect, it can be messy but that is alright
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.
Ylenia Callus
Ylenia Callus is a University graduate of Masters in Theatre Studies by Research, after having graduated with a Bachelors in Theatre Studies (Hons) and Communication Studies. Additionally, she has obtained a National Diploma in Drama and Acting from Malta School of Drama and Dance. Her main area of interests are writing, film, performing, art, movement, escape room design and music.
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.
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