HOW COME YOU ARE ALIVE?
Nineteenth Bitef POLYPHONY, as the festival side programme dedicated to the role that theatre artists and other creators have in the work with young people, will be held from 15th to 21st September. Urged by 52nd Bitef concept, expressed through its slogan “World Without Us” and its focus on the art phenomena in contemporary theatre and performing arts that point out at disturbing social phenomena of the contemporary society, the title of 19th Bitef POLYPHONY is “HOW COME YOU ARE ALIVE?”. Opening the discussion about the main topics in this year’s programme, Bitef POLYPHONY continues its search for polyphonic drama and theatre through multitude of voices, multitude of sounds, variations and counterpoints… with its authors, participants and the audience.
“HOW COME YOU ARE ALIVE?” is a line from the performance Death to Fascism: On the Ribars and Freedom, a new production by the independent youth company Reflektor Theatre which has become the pivot of an entire polyphony bloc with workshops on various parts of a theatre process that encourage the exploration of contemporary performing practice as artistic starting point for the exploration of various modes of activism, openness for personal stories and social issues, for problematizing memory and the past, for the life burdened with the present, but also for the vision of a better future.
The programme continues with a new initiative called “ON THE SPOT”, encouraged by the last year’s bus trip to the performance Alice, which was played on authentic venues - the corridors and halls of a theatre in Lazarevac. This year, Bitef POLYPHONY invites participants and audience to Kragujevac, where they will learn about a new project, its work process, complex set and the specific concept of community theatre performance Two Hundred by the Serbian Court Theatre.
In the European Year of Cultural Heritage, Bitef POLYPHONY promotes the development of an alternative reading of epic poetry and of the deliberation of ideological matrix of folk poems which strongly determine contemporary social relations. As a part of the project Epic Games by the Art troupe Hop.La! (last year we saw the performance Walling of Skadar), Bitef POLYPHONY this year presents The Wedding of Emperor Dušan.
This year, Bitef POLYPHONY casts a glance towards the future and its twentieth anniversary which takes place next year. In cooperation with Filmkultura - Association for education in audiovisual culture, the audience will be given an opportunity to participate in “Performing Presence: Workshop on Archives and Being”. It focuses on playing with the idea born in the digital media, i.e. the challenge by the digital media through their presence and expression in the world.
The editorial team of 19th Bitef Polyphony
