She’s done it again! Local dancer with Down Syndrome Maria Gauci’s dance video has made it to international screens! Meet Me, which was a collaborative dance between Maria and Kostas Papamatthaiakis, was screened at the FIDanzCa – Festival Internacional de Danza de Calle, a dance film festival held in Mexico.

The project

Back in January, the video of the dancers surfaced and was a result of Maria being awarded funding through Artivisti 2018, for which she was nominated by arts organisation Opening Doors. This meant “we could find more intensive opportunities for her dance training during 2018,” Rachel Calleja, Maria’s mentor and producer of the video, had said.

The video featured Maria and Kostas dancing to Red Electrick’s Aleandro Spiteri Monsigneur’s original composition, ‘a song about loss.’ Maria has always had a love for dance and this video helped her to culminate that. “I train hard because it gives me a sense of satisfaction, I meet great people and obviously, it keeps me active,” she told us in an earlier interview.

Today, we spoke to Rachel and Maria again, who had very positive things to say about this exposure. “We applied for it independently and got accepted,” Rachel says, who informs us that the festival was one that featured dance films in general and wasn’t specific to inclusive works.

“We are one of five countries that showed work on this platform,” Rachel says, mentioning that Mexico, Canada, France and Spain were the other four countries that took part.

Rachel tells us that Maria was very excited to see her dance shown in a new country. “I’m very happy and pleased that it was shown in Mexico,” Maria said.

Congratulations to the whole team!