Our Dream to Perform

37 young adults with intellectual difficulties need your help to make the high-quality performance of their dreams happen this June!

Opening Doors Malta Culture March 29, 2017 at 5:01 pm
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Project Description

Why should you be part of this?

We believe in art for all – Do you!?

At Opening Doors, we’re about promoting and actively involving adults with learning disabilities in the artistic and creative sector across Malta and Gozo. This year, we’re aiming higher and as an autonomous, non-profit NGO we need your help to get there.

We’d like to give our talented performers a unique opportunity to train professionally and artistically and to get them on the big stage. We’ve been awarded funds through Art Council Malta – Malta Arts Fund – to cover artists’ fees for the rehearsal process and development of the work. However we still have some costs uncovered and this is where you get into the equation!

We would like to raise enough funds to:

  • Collaborate with an expert in lighting design
  • Collaborate with an expert in sound engineering
  • Get this performance on an established stage
  • Source/Make costumes, props and set.

Thanks to your donation we will enable our dream of setting up an exciting high quality production of Aħdar id-Deżert.

Moreover we’ll not only be super grateful, but you’ll also be part of our journey of making art, music, dance and theatre accessible to everyone, across all abilities, nationwide.

Donate by cheque: (till 1st May 2017)

Should you prefer to donate by cheque kindly make them payable to : Opening Doors Association

Address: Volunteer Center 181, Melita Street, Valletta VLT 1129

Donate Online via Paypal or by Credit Card: 

Those who wish to pay by Credit Card can choose this option when directed to the PayPal page.

Click on New to PayPal. You will be redirected to Guest checkout where you can insert your credit card details and pay accordingly.

Where we’re at:

We’ve so much in store for you already – we just can’t wait for June!

These past two years have been full of artistic explorations with our creative team and participants, to produce a full-length work across three artistic groups, Music, Dance and Theatre and involving 37 performers with learning difficulties. The title is Aħdar id-Deżert and the theme is the journeys we’re all taking – whether safe or perilous, long or short – and how they’re changing us as we cross new borders and venture into new territories.

Evaluative discussions held with the artistic team have confirmed that this year’s production journey should continue to develop the work already started, but this time enabling our performers to experience a higher level of production quality, including lighting, sound, venue, costumes and set. This will be a fantastic and well-deserved experience for our performers who are so committed and dedicated to their weekly schedule of artistic training practice. Through continuing this practice, we aim to enable our performers to assimilate and take ownership of the work being presented.

Also, a first for Opening Doors, the staging of this production takes place on a shared stage involving a trio of established companies and bands, made up of professional musicians and dancers. This will be another step towards integrating our work within the local arts scene and increasing audience numbers at our performance events. Our collaborators include: Teatru Salesjan, Theatre Anon Arts Foundation, The Tailors with Gianluca Bezzina [Band], The Ranch [Band] and Alegria Dance Company [Flamenco Dance Group].

More about Opening Doors:

Since 2008, Opening Doors has grown from a Theatre Group to an NGO, formed a Dance Group in 2014, and a Music Group in 2015. This year we have nearly reached full capacity of these three core groups reaching 40+ members developing creative work and performing publicly. The organisation now also runs regular classes in Wardija Education & Resource Centre, and Ħal Far, Cottonera and Paola Day Services. In 2016, Opening Doors further established itself in gaining a Cultural Partnership Agreement with the Arts Council of Malta. The organisation has grown from strength to strength; our services are reaching adults with intellectual difficulties more than ever. Nonetheless, the more established we get and people we reach the more we realise how much more needs to be done.

As we develop and gain expertise we also understand that the more we share our work with other arts organisations and freelance artists locally, the more effectively we can achieve our aim.

Through our collaborations, discussions and informal sharings, we hope to stimulate, encourage and empower the groups and individuals we engage with, and thus opening several more doors and opportunities to the sector.

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This project is supported by Arts Council Malta – Malta Arts Fund

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Project FAQ

We - humans, animals or otherwise - travel all the time, but why do we do it? And how do we do it? And how does it change us?

Aħdar Id-Deżert (Green Desert) is set to explore how everyone and everything has their own journey to make - whether to follow their dreams, to find freedom, to look for a loved one. In face of a journey and its destination, borders and geographical names of countries could mean everything...or even nothing. Either way, we experience culture, otherness and identities that will forever change the landscape of our lives. The journey becomes a part of who we are and who we will become, in a desert full of possibilities that are waiting to blossom into green saplings of hope.

This Opening Doors performance is a devised piece shared by a cast of 37 performers with intellectual disabilities, and a production team of 13 people including directors, assistants, volunteers and collaborators, that's been in the works, rehearsals and all, since January 2016. The first building blocks began at the beginning of our artistic year, in October 2015, where each of our three groups worked separately on ideas that related to travelling, journeying, migration and the intermingling of cultures.

And finally, 2017 is the year that we will, with your support, truly take this to the big stage!

Performance dates:
Friday 9th June, 19:30hrs
Saturday 10th June, 19:30hrs
Sunday 11th June, 16:00hrs

Venue:
Teatru Salesjan, Sliema

Supporting Acts:
9th June: The Tailors featuring Gianluca Bezzina
10th June: Alegria Dance Company
11th June: The Ranch

For more information, email us on [email protected] or 79938584.

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