Dancers, musicians and a handful of colourful extra-terrestrials weaved their way through scientific exhibits yesterday as the Malta International Arts Festival came to an end at the Esplora centre in Kalkara.

Science and art collided in a day of interactive events, including an innovative live collaboration between a dancer and animator, dances about the perils of social media addiction and the life cycle of a flower, snippets of a new sci-fi theatre play, hands-on workshops and demonstrations.

Malta International Arts Festival director Michelle Castelletti said the event, which followed an open call for artistic performances with a scientific twist, aimed to highlight the interactivity of the arts and show how science and the arts had increasingly become fused.

“Art is not necessarily confined to a concert hall,” she said. “Events like this are a way of reaching out to new audiences, particularly children, by using unusual spaces and a hands-on approach while opening up our programme to new artists.”

Esplora programme development executive Clayton ­­ Cutajar said the collaboration had allowed the centre, which opened last year, to continue its focus on integrating the arts into the traditional STEM disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The Malta International Arts Festival featured a varied programme of theatre, music, dance and visual arts events in venues across Malta starting June 29.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.