23rd Bitef Polyphony 2022

Photography: Maša Raca

Continuously discovering, presenting and analysing innovative, creative and participative practices in the field of workshops and performances, as well as programme concepts, all in relation with the current role of artists working with children and young people, this year’s Bitef Polyphony focuses on the role and position of theatre as institution in the society and in today’s world, as well as the offer of “side programmes” prompted by the performances on the repertoire, which open dialogue with all those changes and burning issues that are raised by everyday life and new crises, conflicts and migrations, pandemic and environmental issues, violence, and the new wars… 
The twenty-third Bitef Polyphony adheres to the fifty-sixth Bitef slogan “We - the Heroes of Our Own Labour”, and, like experienced fighters for innovative, participative and creative rights in working with children and young people, go “Towards New Work Challenges” of discovering the possibilities of theatre for the new as opposed to evil and as opposed to the pressures of the reality that we comment in the language of art and raise the questions of our own actions.
What are theatre artists and other workers and experts in culture, education and social activism doing for that good and creative here and now, and for the future of the generations to come? Are they changing themselves and if so, how? Are they introducing changes into their actions, work, and work relationships in the processes they stimulate?
Following the Bitef festival thematic line, which highlights the question of labour and the right to work, Bitef Polyphony introduces the question of the right of young authors to work, and the right of children to participation and co-authorship in theatre, in the world of art, culture, and in everyday life, as well as the question of the need for full participation and a life filled with motivation, openness and creation; a life free from pressures, closeness and destruction. 
Moreover, we are entering new work challenges with a special mission to allow for enough time and space for the authors and co-authors participants in the programme of Bitef Polyphony to meet each other and establish exchange within this side programme that offers interactive presentations, performance in focus, dialogue platforms on the topical issues and ways of work, but also researches on cultural offer, cultural participation, cultural heritage, dialogue culture and the idea of the right to democratic culture in the common action for the values of life.

Programme concept: Ljubica Beljanski Ristić
Programme team: Ana Konstantinović, Tanja Šljivar, Ana Marjanović Šejn, Aleksandra Jelić, Jelena Gavrić, Diana Kržanić Tepavac, Milena Bogavac, Uroš Ranković, Milana Zarić, Maša Vukanović, Irena Ristić
Producer: Mirjana Žarković
Programme support: Centre for Drama in Education and Art CEDEUM (The National Centre of International Drama/Theatre and Education Association IDEA)
ASSITEJ Serbia, Association for Development of Theatre for Children and Young People
(The National Centre of the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People ASSITEJ International)
Partners: Cultural Centre “Parobrod”, Little Theatre “Duško Radović”, and The Institute for Cultural Development Research
Programme realisation: Polyphony theatre in coproduction with Bitef Theatre
2022