| Admin History | As a result of the Deputy Minister for Art in Malta seeing Kneehigh's performance of Hell's Mouth at Hendra Pit in 2000, Kneehigh were invited to make a piece of work in Malta.
The three week project entitled 'Island of Dreams' was based on the memories of the local population in the face of a rapidly evolving change in the town. This project culminated in highly visual final show and festival and worked so well that the Company were invited back.
Two years later the British Council in Malta and Cyprus helped to forge links with St James Cavalier in Valletta and Thoc, the State Theatre of Cyprus and Nicosia; they in turn found performers, makers and musicians and the resources to create the epic 3-year 'Three Islands Project'. When work began on the Three Islands Project it became apparent that a story was needed that would work in three locations enabling a link between Cornwall and the two Mediterranean Islands.
Inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story, 'A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings' is a simple story that deals with profound issues of communities affected by change, and the metaphor of the seas bringing and taking away. This highlighted the commonalities between Malta, Cyprus and Cornwall and presented the possibilities of adapting the story to individual locations.
'The intention was to represent a working community: a world that is self-sustaining and to explore how an unexpected arrival changes that'
'The language of the show, spoken by a multicultural and multilingual cast, has become the language of our village 'Mahal-le' and it bears the traces of Latin, Maltese, English, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Cypriot and Japanese
.'
The project began in Cyprus in 2003 with a summer school to identify and train British, Cypriot and Maltese artists in site specific performance, direction, design, music and choreography. This led to the first performance in Malta in October in 2003 supported by the 'Culture 2000 Programme' followed by a performance in Cyprus in 2004 and then Hayle in Cornwall in 2005.
References: Bill Mitchell & Mercedes Kemp CPA2/86 Programme (Hayle), CPA2/127 - Programme (Cyprus).
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