Bitef Polyphony has been accompanying the Bitef program for the 24th year. Under the title "Yard, Forest, Jungle", five performances, five workshops and three dialogues are on the program from October 5 to 9.
Ljubica Beljanski Ristić, the creator of "Polifonija", says that this year's program followed a change in the organization of the Main Program of Bitef, so a selection team was introduced - apart from her, Irena Ristić also participated in the selection of plays.
Also, says Ljubica Beljanski Ristić, "when Bitef in its new edition was launched with an open message to the public, "What kind of Bitef do we need" and we turned to questioning what kind of Bitef Polifonija we need in that context. The invitation was sent to the participants of the previous Polyphonies and to a wider circle of theater and other artists, creators and experts in the field of culture and education to give their suggestions."
The result is the following: "We returned to the long-term experience from which Bitef Polyphony arose, that is, from the program of drama workshops and the former Škozorište, and above all the first Polyphony that dealt with the role of artists in working with young people in times of crisis, after which we continued to discover and we question the potential and strength of theater in overcoming pressures, violence and conflict situations."
The title of this year's program "Yard, Forest, Jungle" emerged from that heritage, says Ljubica Beljanski Ristić, specifically "from a Skozorishna game in which twelve-year-olds at the time wanted to tell adults their story of growing up." Irena Ristić, today a professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts and co-editor of the Bitef Polyphony program, was one of those children."
In this year's editorial for the program, she wrote why and how she perceives that image of growing up today: "...We left the yard for the forest, but the jungle still besieges us. There are no clear outlines of the outcome, and no retreat. Growing up in that rift, overcoming wildness, bypassing traps, breaking through fears, and finding strength again - these are the achievements of all previous polyphonic releases. There is will and skill in them, they have the skills to make progress."
Bitef Polyphony has always created the program in relation to "existing events", listening to the main program.
"And then, sometime around the time of the first announcements of the Bitef Main Program, a small miracle would happen: the phenomenon of feedback loops, those strange loops that continue to build on themselves, would start to work," explains Ljubica Beljanski Ristić. Thus, the program of Bitef Polyphony would be "integrated into the time and space of the Bitef festival".
Thus, for this year's Polyphony, the play "Bird Cage" by Nikola Stanišić, the winning text of Steria's theater for the original contemporary dramatic text 2022/2023, was chosen. year, about four inmates of a juvenile correctional facility where violence is supposed to be treated, but actually only increases.
Next on the program is the duo drama "Gideon's Knot" from Croatia, a dialogue between a mother of a recently deceased son and a teacher; "Girls" by Milena Bogavac in the production of the Belgrade "Reflektor Theater" about stereotypes in patriarchal society; "Communication/Why the school, why the theater" in which the students of V/1 Elementary School "Sveti Sava" from Belgrade participate and it was created during eight months of work in Media Literacy classes, in cooperation with Kulturocyclina from Kruševac, directed by Sandra Maksimović.
At the end of the "polyphony" is "Bambi", a play by the "Duško Radović" Small Theater, directed by Bojana Lazić, who, together with Uglješa Šajtinec, dramatized Felix Salter's novel of the same name. Ljubica Beljanski says that the interest is extremely high, especially for "Bambi".
Why, it is possible to guess already from the words of the playwright for this play:
"...lies, invents, blames others. That's how He is. He also says that he has the right to everything because he is a Man and everything that exists should serve him. The sun, stars, rivers and forests, everything exists only to serve Him, in fact, it does not even exist, it has no meaning if He is not there. But a fragile fawn will come. Silent, like a shadow caressing the rough neck of oaks in the woods. It will release the Sun and the stars, the morning mists and the rustling of leaves high in the canopy. They will tell him: You are not what everything revolves around. And it will be called Bambi."
Photo: Marko PejovićAs an example of the forums at Polyphony, let's mention "The Origin of Fear", a survey form of thinking about fears among young people that is part of the research for the play "Teatra Mimart" by Lidija Antonović and Mina Ćirić, whose premiere will be in November in the UK "Parobrod".
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