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Simone Spiteri, 22, will be leading her friends in the Dù theatre group up to Denmark for the Hans Christian Andersen festival, along with acclaimed theatre company Aleateia. The Hollow Room has been officially selected to participate in The Meeting Place 2005: A Tribute to Hans Christian Andersen, in Esbjerg, Denmark in October. Du’ and Aleateia are presenting the performance in Malta on the 1st and 2nd of October at 7.30pm at the MITP Theatre in St Christopher Street, Valleta (courtesy - KKU). Tickets Lm3 at the door. Bookings on 79068044 or info@aleateia.com. More info on www.aleateia.com.
How did the idea of Dù come about?
I founded Dù in 2004 right after I finished both the acting course at the Drama Centre and my university finals. I spent eight years as a drama student at the Drama Centre and graduated in theatre studies. Basically the idea was that after so much studying we (at the time the group consisted of myself and Magda van Kuilenburg) wanted to just start putting it all in practice and do theatre, experiment, research and explore it. It was initially hard for us to get into a mind-frame where we had to cater for everything since we were all used to being in a school where most of the production needs were catered for us by other people. But with a lot of trial and error we got the hang of it and at present the group is not only made up of six people (four actors and two musicians) but each and every one of us has taken over other vital aspects which are very important when creating a performance be it designing and making costumes, taking care of advertising and any other things that comes with a full performance package.
How does Dù differ from other groups?
Dù’s strong point is in the diversity of its members. Each member has a different theatrical baggage which results in a harmonious complementation of the other members’ different experiences and which is ultimately a key to what we hope is an enhanced theatrical process. The later, is in fact Dù’s chief aim – we try to highlight the performer’s own personal process and consider it as the fulcrum of any performative act. This obviously entails a lot of hard work and training and since the group hasn’t been in existence for such a long time we are still probing and trying to explore new and better ways to attain the best personal and holistic artistic processes.
Why did you choose the ‘Dù’ as the company’s name?
The word “do” in English literally means: “to perform, effect, transact, bring about word at, work out provide and prepare”, which is exactly what a Dù performer strives to achieve: a performative act as a result of meticulous and disciplined preparation. Dù is literally a Maltese phonetic version of its English counterpart “do”. This is because although Dù always tries to keep an open eye for global artistic and cultural approaches, it never wants to move away from its own cultural roots.
What have been your projects so far?
During the past year Dù has participated in three local artistic events. There was the Dramafest 2004 which was Dù’s first ever performance as a group. Then the annual Shakespeare Commemoration in April 2005 organised by the British Cultural Association, and recently Dramafest 2005.
How has the experience been so far?
In both the Shakespeare Commemoration and Dramafest 2005 the group worked on a near year-long project which took as a starting point Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. In April, Cleopatra, was still in its initial experimental stages. The piece was more of a study researching and exploring different approaches to the text and voice. We kept working on the project till August and the first stage of the project later progressed into Eva, a 30-minute performance staged at the Dramafest 2005. Eva was a result of the group’s work on the performance structure we had created with Cleopatra and which we kept working on.
You will now be working closely with Aleateia…
We have, for a long time, admired Aleateia’s work and the prospect o working together has always been something lurking in both group’s minds. Therefore when the opportunity to apply for The Meeting Place: A Celebration of Hans Christian Andersen came up, we both decided that this was a great opportunity to work together and join forces in order to represent our country rather than apply for the festival separately. Aleateia and Du` Theatre Groups are collaborating on an exciting project titled The Hollow Room which pays homage to Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen for his 200th birthday. We are one of 14 international groups chosen for this prestigious festival and we are all the more excited about it because it will not only be a meeting place for so many different foreign companies, but it has also been a great meeting place for us as two local groups.
Simone Spiteri was talking to Erika Brincat
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