View MoreLa Reina: A Vocal Structure is the first presentation in the second performance process by Icarus Performance Project (Malta). Taking its cue from the previous project's point of arrival, a four-year process that culminated in Lamentations of Cain (2005), Icarus Project has devised a vocal structure as its point of departure for the new work.
La Reina, Spanish for ‘The Queen', is inspired, textually as well as dramaturgically, by Don Quixote . Material from Cervantes's work has been fused with material from other literary sources (mainly Pablo Neruda's poetry) to provide a base for a dramaturgy that seeks to explore the carnivalesque.
The vocality of the La Reina structure taps Maltese and Mediterranean sources in terms of sound patterns and vocal textures by way of traditional songs as well as multi-tiered linguistic configurations (mainly phonetic, semantic, and syntactic). The Project's work in this area builds on the vocal qualities and dynamics of the Maltese language that were explored in Lamentations of Cain (2005).
True to its investigative nature and to the Project's previous presentations, the aesthetic of La Reina is an open, evolving one that gives the performance a dynamic feel of something that is alive.
La Reina was presented in SUPA 2006 at the Malta Arts Festival Summer 2006.
Photos by Sandro Spina
