Peace Comes About in Your Honour’: The Arts, Migration and Reconciliation

Abstract

This presentation illustrates how a multimodal and transdisciplinary project brings together dance, music, poetry and historical and natural settings, with the ultimate aim of raising awareness about issues of migration. The mixing of Maltese poetry translated into English, with corporeal gestures and movements allows the interpreter of the work to experience and embody social, historical, literary and identity issues and concerns in original and challenging performative praxis. The goal is to break up epistemic and canonical boundaries between languages, disciplines and arts, in order to embrace an intricate and unpredictable multimodal dialogue, which reflects the complexity of today's wor(l)d societies. The intermodal work is divided into three parts: the temple, the tower and the beach. These three contexts are intertwined with Malta's history, culture and land and seascapes. It is a distant dialogue with the ancient inhabitants of the archipelago, passing through a reflection on the legacy of different dominations, and ending with a message of reconciliation, partnership and hope, which are symbolised by the redemptive power of the sea that 'erases and forgets' to start anew.
This presentation will focus in particular on the choreography set by the 'Tower' on a desert-like cliff, thus introducing the theme of domination and human control. The digital production broadens the semiotic space by offering multiple layers of meaning through various artistic forms, and it scaffolds the ability to interpret the historical archive of the island in order to address today's gloabal issues of power, migration and identity representation(s).



Author Information
Mattia Mantellato, University of Udine, Italy
Antoinette Camilleri Grima, University of Malta, Malta

Paper Information
Conference: ACAH2021
Stream: Performing Arts Practices: Theater

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Posted by James Alexander Gordon