IN FROM THE SHADOWS
Throughout 2007, Mario Azzopardi was involved in a series of forum theatre workshops which he conducted in central Rome as part of a multilateral project, focussing on the influence on personal access to education for people with migrant backgrounds. The project, known as PASS, was funded by the European Union as a Socrates (Grundtvig) initiative.The participants at the drama workshops included researchers, social workers and representatives of NGOs from Italy, Germany, Austria, Lithuania and Turkey. The partner countries invited Azzopardi to introduce them to the key elements of community drama, including work taken up with African immigrants on the island of Malta. Azzopardi also devised improvisations and wrote a script on the issue of clandestine immigration into Europe. The script, In from the Shadows, was televised in Malta and translated with sub-titles by the countries involved in the project.
FESTSCHRIFT
Mario Azzopardi was invited in 2008 by Independent Print Publishers (PIN) to write an appreciation article on President Emeritus and ex-Prim Minister Dr Eddie Fenech Adami. PIN published a festschrift in honour of the ex-politician who piloted Malta’s entry into the European Union in 2004. The festschrift was launched in November 2009 under the title Inservi (Let me Serve).
Azzopardi concentrated on the cultural achievements during Dr Fenech Adami's tenure of office as Prime Minister, including the introduction of pluralism in broadcasting and the setting up of major cultural institutions like the Centre for Creativity in Valletta, the National Language Council, the National Book Council and the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts. Azzopardi himself wrote Malta’s first Cultural Policy in 2001, which was applauded and endorsed by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg the following year.
AZZOPARDI IN BUCHAREST
In September 2009 Mario Azzopardi was invited to attend the current edition of the Olive Theatre Festival in Bucharest, Romania. Azzopardi was invited to assess the festival in order to consider the Malta Drama Centre's eventual entry in 2010. It was in fact agreed that Malta would be represented in the forthcoming edition of the festival to be held in Greece. Azzopardi also forged very fruitful contacts with directors from Italy,Romania, Israel and Serbia. He also invited the creator of the Festival, professor Vladimir Yevtovic from Serbia, to give a series of workshops in Malta in January 2010, based on Chekhovian texts and using the Stanislavski technique. Another fruitful contact was made with theatre and drama studies director Mihaela Sirbu from the National University of Theatre and Cinematography of Romania, who employs drama methods by Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg and who showed a keen interest to conduct a project with Maltese senior drama students. In Bucharest, Azzopardi attended a number of theatre shows, including a premier of a new production of Strindberg's Miss Julie at the Odeon Theatre, where he was also invited to meet the cast and the director.
INTERNATIONAL DRAMA FORUM IN GRAZ
In October 2009 Azzopardi was invited to attend an international forum-theatre convention in Graz, Austria. He participated in workshops conducted by drama animator Adrian Jakson, main translator of Augusto Boal's theatre books. He met several foreign directors, including those from India and Iran, where theatre is making inroads to tackle important social issues like domestic violence and patriarchism. Azzopardi discussed the "dialogic" aspect of theatre and how it can be applied within ethnic contexts where social challenges are normally left "unspoken".
LIVE INTERVIEW AT CREATIVITY CENTRE
A live interview was given by Azzopardi at St. James Creativity Centre in Valletta in January 2010. He was interviewed by Immanuel Mifsud, a leading poet and short story writer of the new, post-post-Independence generation. Azzopardi spoke about his childhood and youth, his reputation as a "rebel" writer who had been described by critics as Malta's "enfant terrible" of letters, his development as a lyrical writer who nevertheless, did not abandoned his keen social commitment as well as his emerging new style, employing prose poetry (a new book of poems by Azzopardi will be published early in 2010). The poet also spoke about the "overlap" of literary and dramatic devises in his poetry, as well as the influence of his earlier involvement as a painter. The interview also focused on the writer's frustration when confronted with a society still influenced by archaic manifestations of religious practice (Azzopardi sees it as both "confessionalist" and "folkloristic") and the effects of "tribal politics". He blames the media for capitalising on many people.
AZZOPARDI IN LILLE
Between the 12-14 November 2008 Azzopardi was invited to Lille in France to deliver a paper on his work with irregular migrants in Malta and how theatre could be used as a tool to empower disenfranchised people, including clandestines. The continuous arrival of the boat people, as they have become known in Malta, has provoked very negative reactions in large segments of the Maltese population. Azzopardi explained to his audience in Lille how, within this scenario of unfortunate intolerance, he wanted to make "a political statement" in favour of irregular immigrants through a project initiated through the Malta Drama Centre and involving Congolese actors, dancers and singers. Azzopardi also explained how, under his directorship, the Drama Centre is involving itself in Community Theatre, by way of creating a platform for emarginated citizens, including drug addicts receiving rehabilitation attention and ex-prisoners.
Azzopardi's contribution to the Lille seminar, organised by ARCADE (France) also included his participation in a workshop which examined the Malta project in more detail. His paper on the empowerment of immigrants through theatre will be published by ARCADE in 2009.
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
Also in November 2008 Mario Azzopardi received the National Book Award for Adolescent Literature. He won the award for his collection of short stories, Alicia Titkellem mill-Imwiet (Alicia Speaks from the Dead), published by Merlin Publications. The awarding body singled out Azzopardi's stories for their powerful psychological insight into the minds of young people. This was the second National Book Award for Azzopardi, after he had won the award for Poetry in 1997.
It should be said that with other writers, Azzopardi has been pressing for more transparency for the National Awards for Literature, claiming that adjudicators as well as their reports in the various categories should be made public.
MONTAGES ON ELIOT, DARWISH
Mario Azzopardi coordinated in December 2008 two commemorative dramatic montages, one marking the 120th anniversary from the birth of Anglo-American poet T.S. Eliot and the other the demise of Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish, who passed away in the summer of 2008. The montage on Darwish was especially successful and it was viewed by many university students of literature, local writers and Palestinian representatives residing on the island.
Meanwhile, Palestinian poet Walid Nabhan has been preparing a literary evaluation of Azzopardi's work for the Arabic press. Azzopardi has long been associated with the struggling Palestinian people. In 1986 he co-founded the Solidarity with Palestine Committee in Malta which included representation from both leading political parties in Malta as well the Palestinian Ambassador to Malta at the time, another poet and artist, Mourad Bahlul. The following year, Azzopardi designed, edited and introduced a selection of poet Mahmoud Darwish's verse under the title Poezija tar-Rezistenza (The Poetry of Resistance).
INTERVIEW ON "IR-REALTA'"
The February (2008) issue of "Ir-Realta'", a left-wing newspaper published by students at the University of Malta, carried a two-page interview with Mario Azzopardi. The author answered questions about writing for young people, the media, the literary revival of the Sixties in Malta, cultural policy, the perceived profile of university students nowadays, as well as the international scene. Azzopardi spoke about how globalisation has instigated again the protest movement, including militancy against the G8 meetings and dissidence in the USA. He said that beneath the "freedom" slogan, the planet is rattled by instability and corruption in many regions.
Interview in Malta Today
In an interview carried in Malta Today ( 18 November 2008 ) Mario Azzopardi spoke about television, art, literature and culture. Journalist Karl Schembri remarked that Azzopardi finds it hard to strike a balancing act in a small island and that he has been showing some “bizarre” preferences for his expressive outlets: Mr. Schembri noted that Azzopardi is even using “mouthpieces of the Establishment” to voice his rage, which remains unabated forty years after the poet co-founded the Movement for the Promotion of Literature, which radicalized Maltese letters.
In the course of the interview, Azzopardi attacked the recent proposal to have anti-abortion laws entrenched in Malta 's Constitution, as well as the archaic “depository system” prevailing in the education sector: “Education should be about life rehearsals, not about mechanical responses,” Azzopardi told Malta Today. “Far from being liberating, our education system is stifling; it is a construct, not a creative force. It imitates knowledge instead of researching it.”
On Censorship
Malta Today interviewed Azzopardi again on 27 January 2008 , this time about stage censorship, which is still in practice in Malta . Azzopardi said that the practice is flagrantly against the principles upheld by the Council of Europe and the European Union. He reminded his readers that the issue of stage censorship in Malta was severely criticized by a mission of six experts who visited Malta in (June) 2002 to assess the country's cultural policy.
Contact with Studio Theatre West of London
Early in 2008 Mario Azzopardi , as director of the Malta Drama Centre, established contacts with Ms Julie Saunders, a British actress who worked with some great directors and who now has shifted to the director's seat herself, running a training institution for young actors, Studio Theatre West of London. Both sides are planning to take a full scale production of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet to Malta in July 2008. The famous tragedy, directed by Ms. Saunders herself and choreographed by a Chinese master, will be staged at the open air theatre at the Malta Drama Centre.
“Coming in from the Shadows”
Coming in from the Shadows is the latest in a series of drama scripts which Mario Azzopardi has produced for the purpose of fostering community theatre within a European context. Based on a set of interviews conducted with ex-clandestine immigrants by researchers from Italy , Austria , Germany , Lithuania and Turkey , Azzopardi himself will rehearse his text in Rome with European partners. The script will then be filmed and distributed in the partner countries for communal debate and action in favour of immigrants who fled zones of conflict or poverty, or who suffered persecution for their political beliefs.
In 2006, Azzopardi coordinated a performing arts project for clandestine immigrants taking refuge in Malta after fleeing from the African Congo. The project, Katanga , received wide acclaim from the local press, run for four nights before dense audiences and was selected as an example of good practice by the Ericarts Foundation in Germany , an entity which is subsidized by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg .
Theatre from Austria
A theatre troupe consisting of five actors from Austria was welcomed in Malta by Mario Azzopardi in March 2007 to present issue drama for a community project. After discussing a series of issues relating to Maltese social and cultural realities, the Austrians opted for two “problematic” pieces: (a) love among young people in Malta and (b) the indiscriminate destruction of the environment for the sake of mass tourism. Both pieces provoked hot debate and Azzopardi directed a post-production meeting where the pros and cons of the experimental project were assessed and evaluated.
A Project from France
Also in March 2007, French director (Anne Courel) from the Jean-Vilar Theatre of Bourgoin-Jallieu, together with one professional actor, Christophe Mirabel from the Ariadne Company based near Lyons , visited the Malta Drama Centre (MDC) after Mario Azzopardi had negotiated an exchange programme involving the French Company, the French Embassy in Malta and the Centre. It was agreed that the two French thespians promote for the first time in Malta the work of Pierre Marivaux, a key dramatist who carried French classical drama into the glittering world of the 18 th century. The project involved twenty young Maltese actors and consisted of a collage built on the comedy of the French master.
Azzopardi in France
Following the Marivuax project in Malta , Mario Azzopardi traveled to France in April 2007 to give a full week of theatre workshops with emphasis on methods meant to “dynamise audiences” towards an awareness of people on the margins of society. Following intensive explorations of current local issues, Azzopardi identified and devised drama pieces on the following: sexual violence, alcohol addiction, gender rights and domestic aggression. The production of the four pieces was staged at the Jean-Vilar Theatre before an audience that was invited to participate in interactive drama. Azzopardi also staged a street carnival in Bourgoin-Jallieu, featuring masks, improvised music and “comedy antics” meant to present themes of social importance to the local community. The carnival defile' proceeded from the Jean-Vilar to the historic Place du 23 Aout 1944 (the day of France 's liberation from Nazi occupation) in the city centre. In France Azzopardi was interviewed for Le Dauphine Libere' and Le Courrier. Le Dauphine described Azzopardi as a “master with charisma who instills much enthusiasm in his actors.”
Work in Austria
Early in June 2007 Mario Azzopardi was in Austria to meet theatre partners from a Grundtvig project sponsored by the European Union. In the town of Bruck an der Leithe he conducted a series of drama training sessions focusing on community involvement. He also took part in a street theatre performance on the notion of “communal responsibility”. Azzopardi was also a key speaker at three meetings with Austrian MEPs and the thrust of his interventions was directed at the need for European intellectuals and artists not to let the social agenda be monopolized by the political powers.
An invitation to Rome
Also in June 2007 Speha Freisa and Griot Agency in Rome invited Mario Azzopardi to give theory and practical drama sessions to participants engaged in a programme dealing with “influence on personal access to education for people with migrant background”. The partners came from Italy , Turkey , Austria , Germany and Lithuania . Introducing key aspects of Forum Theatre methodology, Azzopardi directed participants towards the dramatic concretization of researched material collected in the course of qualitative interviews with immigrants in the respective countries. The objective was to “initiate” practical theatre work, which the partners will then introduce in their respective national communities. Immigrants' narratives were adapted for stage improvisations to cover the three phases of the immigration experience, namely separation, transition and integration. The second part of the project will involve a final structured script which Mario Azzopardi will construct from personal stories collected during the interviews.
Traveling Between Shadows
This is the title of a new book by Dr Charles Briffa ( University of Malta ) which will be published by Progress Press Ltd. on the occasion of the International Book Fair of Malta (2007). The book is an account of Mario Azzopardi 's position as “ Malta 's most radical man of letters and cultural animator”. The book describes Azzopardi's literary role as “a powerful alternative to complacency in the literary and cultural domains.” Dr Charles Briffa lectures on Maltese Literature, Literary Theory and Translation at the University of Malta .
Stories for Adolescents
A cutting-edge anthology of short stories for adolescents, Alicia Titkellem mill-Imwiet (Alicia's Voice beyond Death), is another new book by Mario Azzopardi which will be published to coincide with the 2007 edition of Malta 's Book fair. Focusing on taboo subjects like the sexual abuse of minors and the complicity of silent people involving drug addiction on the island, the book will be presented in an innovative style, assuming the voices both of male and female protagonists. The anthology is being published by Merlin Ltd.
SPEECH AT MALTA BOOK FAIR 2007
In the course of the launch of a new biocrit (Travelling between Shadows) about his life and works, written by Dr Charles Briffa (University of Malta) and published by the Allied Publishing Group (Malta), Mario Azzopardi spoke about the "moral obligation" of writers and intellectuals not to abdicate the responsibility of facing social realities and voice their concerns.
Speaking at the Mediterranean Conference Centre on 16th November 2007, in front of an audience of writers, media persons and students of literature, Azzopardi said that it is a shame that Malta has been allowed to be "hijacked" by partisan politics and so much sensationalism in the media.
According to Azzopardi, this state of affairs is partly the result of the aloofness sphere shown systematically by writers, artists and intellectuals. He indicted the intellectual class of "crass inaction" and spoke about how the world of literature is enhanced by names of writers who penetrated the public sphere with uncompromising interventions. In this context, remarked Azzopardi, there is a profusion of names which come readily to mind: from Jean Paul Sartre to Norman Mailer, from Solzhenitsyn to Dario Fo, from Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Carlos Fuentes to Harold Pinter and Doris Lessing, who, after receiving the Nobel Prize, described (ex-British PM) Tony Blair and (US) President George W. Bush as outright calamities.
At the book launch, two evaluations were submitted by Professor Joe Friggieri and Dr Walid Nabhan, who both focused on Mario Azzopardi's consistent efforts to motivate cultural intervention and instigate critical consciousness.