Drama Centre students at Babel Festival

A group of eight Drama Centre students and their director took part in the Bruxelles Babel Festival.

The director Paul Portelli, and the students Ronald Briffa, Kristjana Casha, Miriam Galea, Jonathan Grima, Beverly Pace, Roberta Parnis, Andrew Rizzo and Elaine Saliba, took part in the festival that annually brings together different world cultures by inviting foreign guests to participate.

The Maltese group was one of the three foreign groups invited to Brussels this year, the others being a Spanish group and a group from Slovakia.

The group from Malta presented a highly physical piece, making no use of language, entitled Grigal.

Grigal is currently being presented as part of the Mikelang Borg Drama Centre's 25th Anniversary International Festival.

The Drama Centre, which is this year celebrating its 25th anniversary, has just launched a website.

Set up in 1977, it was originally baptised as Manoel Theatre Academy of Dramatic Arts (MTADA). At the time two British drama advisers were contacted to set up the school along the lines of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

For the past 25 years the Drama Centre, under its various names and guises, has striven to make its artistic contribution to live theatre in Malta and the growing demand for drama training and the limited space of the MTADA premises led to the building of new premises in the nineties.

The Drama Unit Theatre Programme (DUTP) was set up. In 1998, the new building was inaugurated and it now hosts the Mikelang Borg Drama Centre.

Despite its limited financial resources the drama centre has opted to crown its 25th anniversary celebrations with an International Drama Festival, currently underway.

www.dramacentremalta.org/