Curtain Raiser Theatre Troupe    -   Ten Maltese Performing Artists to Vienna Patrick Vella, founder and workshop leader of Curtain Raiser Theatre Troupe, Malta, took ten performing artists to Vienna to perform in an open air site specific area. The place chosen was a beautiful garden in the middle of Vienna with a Greek Monument replica as a backdrop. In fact the theme chosen was Democracy and Youths. The performers varied from percussionists, actors, singers, musicians and physical theatre performers to psychology officers who uses drama as a medium. The other countries involved in this project were Germany, Finland and Austria. This was a highly dynamic program and definitely left a fusion within the European countries. This was another European funded project which gave the Maltese participants an abundance of experience. The Austrians, who hosted this project this year, invited famous artists to watch the performances of the four countries. Mr. Alfred Mallia who was  one of the brains behind these encounters believed in these European projects and described this project as “the coming together of youths from European countries with the aim of empowering themselves to tackle issues of common concern through the medium of drama.” The encounter helped the participating youths build bridges, voice their concerns, work in groups to solve problems and share the work created during the workshop sessions with the general public in street theatre performances. The Maltese troupe left the island on the 4th of August 2003 for ten days. During these days they had to built up (device) a performance and act it out to voice youth, social and political theatre. Mr. Patrick Vella would like to take the opportunity to thank Skene Theatre Troupe (Luqa) for the premises offered during the DramaDIREKT theatre workshops for this project and Daniel Mercieca for the session given to the group.