First Maltese to become international dance examiner

Theresa Lungaro-Mifsud, principal of The Dance Workshop, is the first Maltese teacher set to become an international examiner with the prestigious Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing.

She was invited by the ISTD to take on this challenge and will begin training in autumn and then start her examining tours in the upcoming academic year.

Teachers and dancers from The Dance Workshop have been busy during the summer months furthering their dance studies and experiences.

Three teachers - Pamela Kerr (Cecchetti Ballet), Claire Cassola (Modern Theatre) and Maria Louise Gingell (Cecchetti Ballet) - have passed their associate diploma teaching examinations of the ISTD.

The current teaching examinations of the ISTD are in the process of being radically changed with importance given to raising the teaching diploma to university degree level.

Potential tutors for the new courses, as well as the dance studios, are being monitored to ensure that the standards of the new teaching qualifications will be maintained.

All three teachers have been working with The Dance Workshop for the last four years and Ms Cassola also works as a freelance teacher with The College of Jazz.

Pamela Kerr, Elizabeth Caruana Galizia and Liza Aquilina represented The Dance Workshop in auditions held by The Dance Council - Malta.

Local companies and dance schools were invited to audition for the European Year of Education and Sport festival to be held in France in October. The three dancers performed a six-minute dance called Unspoken Conversations, choreographed by Ms Lungaro-Mifsud to music by Astor Piazzolla.

Technical, artistic and choreographic competence were judged during this audition. Unspoken Conversations topped the list of five successful dances, which will represent Malta.