The public will have a rare chance to get an inside peek into the life of a professional dancer as ŻfinMalta  joins Pjazza Teatru Rjal to hold its first open day to reach out to new audiences.

This novel event by artistic director Paolo Mangiola is being held tomorrow and will include guided tours of the former Royal Opera House ruins.

For Pjazza Teatru Rjal director Christopher Muscat, this open day was the perfect chance for visitors to combine a day-in-the-life of Malta’s national dance company with a free guided tour of this exceptional landmark.

This event will give those present a taster of ŻfinMalta’s upcoming big premiere of Voyager, which opens at the Manoel Theatre, Valletta, on November 2.

Voyager, a joint collaboration between Mangiola and Maltese-born visual artist Austin Camilleri, is inspired by Nasa’s mission 41 years ago, when it sent a present into outer space to give intelligent life a snapshot of earth’s diversity, sounds, feelings and thoughts through 116 images encoded in analogue form. The sounds from earth inspired Mangiola to reflect on the sounds and historical images we could send to outer space if a second Voyager mission was to be launched in the near future.

The open day starts at 9am with a warm-up and a ballet class, followed by rehearsals of Voyager. At 10.15am and 11.50am there will be two 20-minute guided tours of the former Royal Opera House, built in 1866 to a design by British architect Edward Middleton Barry, as well as the modern backstage facilities of Renzo Piano’s Pjazza Teatru Rjal. The tours will start from in front of the theatre in Republic Street. Then, between 12.15pm and 1pm there will be a question and answer session with Mangiola and some of the artists involved in the process. Entrance – including the guided tours – is free. For more information visit http://zfinmalta.org or http://pjazzateatrurjal.mt .