European language, theatre project has fairytale ending

Students and teachers from San Andrea school, L-Imselliet, and partner schools in Italy, Turkey, Bulgaria and Germany, attended the fourth and final meeting of the Comenius project 'Europe Goes to Theatre', which was held in May in the village of Grebenstein in Kassel, Germany.

Over the past three years the project has introduced the students to the languages of the partner countries while developing their theatre skills through plays based on European tales and literature. While in Grebenstein, students from the five participating countries performed the play Birds by Aristophanes in the school hall of Heinrich-Grupe-Schule.

San Andrea School was represented at the meeting by school head Dorothy Lapira, project coordinator Sharon Abela, Daphne Said and Lara Muscat, and senior school students Nicole Falzon, Marija Grech, Rebecca Grech, Kylie Vella, Rebecca Xuereb and Michael Gatt.

Kassel and the surrounding German landscape inspired the Grimm Brothers to write their fairytales, and the meeting participants took the occasion to visit the very place where the brothers often sat down with Dorothea Viehmann to write the stories that were later published as fairytales for which they are so famous today.

The program also included a visit to Weimar, home of the famous German writer Goethe and the Sababurg Castle, known as the 'Sleeping Beauty' Castle.

The local school's participation in the project was made possible though EU funding received through the European Union Programmes Unit.