Just Dance may sound trivial to describe or do ‘justice’ to the excellence of achievement registered by a recent two-night run of performances at Pjazza Teatru Rjal.

Trying hard to ignore the bangs from not so distant fireworks/petards, the second night performance I experienced was, at least, not impaired visually.

This was a celebration of music, dance and beauty and there was indeed one choreographer – the very talented Antonia Franceschi – who was responsible for all this.

By her own admission, she wanted to share her love of classical ballet and contemporary shapes, phrases and themes. In order to achieve this, she chose music by composers and dancers who speak to her and inspire her with their music and dancing.

The fusion worked well. What was surprising to me was that Brigitte Gauci Borda, whose collaboration in this presentation was an important one, said that the dancers – who hailed from six different countries – had never danced together before.

They were hand-picked by the choreographer and all they had to put the show together was very little more than two weeks.

One element in this show which made it stand out was the use of live music. Local dance performances are more often than not presented and produced to taped music. Even if this were to be perfectly reproduced, it is nothing compared to having real live musicians performing it.

A very prominent role was played this evening by Japanese pianist Yoshiko Sato who was the only instrumentalist in the first ballet and performed in all the other works.

This was simply titled Malta Premiere Ballet, music by Richard Lumsden. It was also the first of two ballets premiered during this evening.

The piano may have been practically written in an ostinato manner but, compared to what followed in other ballets, I found this one the least exciting.

One element in this show which made it stand out was the use of live music

Saying this detracts nothing from the ability of the participating dancers, in this case the whole troupe of seven, who in any case were protagonists in successive dances.

Foremost among them was in cellist Zoë Martlew’s music to Shift Trip Catch. This was performed on an amplified cello by Swedish cellist Johan Stern and what seemed to be like recorded percussion.

The wildly jagged rhythms of the music complemented the movements of the dancers who, in this case, were Maraya Magri (Brazil), Cira Robinson (US) and Álvaro Dule.

This was a greatly energetic performance and it was no less in Jazz, to music by Allen Shawn.

This was the only work with music performed by two string instruments when violinist Richard Wade (UK) joined Johan Stern and featuring a pair of dancers, the clearly top-class Álvaro Dule (Albania) and Katie Gibson (US).

Franceschi’s highly imaginative use of shapes and spaces in the other Malta premiere, Sphere, to music by Von Westkoff, kept the six dancers taking part literally on their toes.

They created really astounding shapes and at a certain point, as if by magic they welded themselves into a sort of butterfly.

The last number on the programme and which felt the most extensive, like the cherry on the caked, was Kinderszenen, not to music from Schumann’s most famous work of that name but that of Allen Shawn.

This was an exciting series of trios, some ensemble dancing and a pretty dazzling solo by Cira Robinson.

The trio of male dancers Dule, Marcelino Sambe (Portugal) and Pierre Tappon (France) started off the work joined later by Romany Pajdek (UK), Cira Robinson and Mayara Magri, in some finely synchronised ensemble work and later danced as a trio.

The evening concluded with Just Dance, a lengthy curtain call in which choreographer, all the troupe and musicians took a bow, individually and collectively. Among them was Franceschi’s eleven-year-old son, Michael, who wrote the music for this finale.

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