10 Polyphony 09

THE CREATIVE CAPITALS OF THE YEARS IN CRISIS

Creative workshops in mapping of the decade of the Bitef Polyphony
Performances, presentations, workshops, discussions, gatherings

This year, Bitef polyphony celebrates 10 years of exploring and promoting the innovative, involving and engaging theatre. It continues exploring various realms of action, involves a range of generations and a range of social categories. What it particularly pays attention to, is the theatre made for, with and by the young; the theatre which introduces changes and alters the existing practice.

The first Bitef Polyphony was held during 34th Bitef 2000 and it was supported by European foundation and the network Open society foundation from seven South-Eastern European countries. The topic of the festival was “Theatre and Evil” whereas the Polyphony explored the topic of violence by presenting and evaluating the project “Art for social changes – playing against violence”. It was targeted at artists and their role in working with the young under the circumstances of crisis, war, conflicts…

This year’s Bitef topic is “The Crisis of Capital – The Art of Crisis” and, ten years later, Bitef polyphony focuses on the topic again. However, this time its primary emphasis is on the creative capitals of the years in crisis – both the ones brought by the time we live in, and those brought by certain age range. Where are those who, ten years ago, took part in Bitef polyphony? What are they doing? The answers will come through the creative workshops in mapping that are to be held every day and which will open a possibility for gatherings, explorations and filing of an ongoing programme’s mission.

As a parallel to the length of its existence, Bitef Polyphony will last ten days. Every day will cover a different theme and those will flow backwards starting with this year’s “The creative capital of the years in crisis” to the first one “Art for social changes – playing against violence”, which will end the 10th Bitef Polyphony.

This year, Bitef Polyphony presents the creations and the tendencies directed at the marginal social groups, unveiling their creative assets and the strength of the messages they convey by the artistic means. Through the exchange between the participants, polyphony will especially aim at discovering the realms of the new theatre tendencies which appear and expand through involvement of theatre artists and other experts in an institutional or a non-institutional form, through multi-sectional cooperation or partnership projects, as well as through some other areas or situations which use drama and theatre as method, means, or a technique…

Drawing its inspiration from the musical form the name of which it bears, Bitef Polyphony develops its concept using a specific structure of a cyclic organization and “back circuit” for “polyphony” here stands for conceptual metaphor of counterpoint, variations, polyvocality, polytonality…

Presenting a programme of this sort as a part of Bitef meant opening a new chapter in creating a new programme segment which has opened but never closed. Instead of that, it has been evolving throughout the years to beome a specific form of Bitef’s new theatre tendencies. If one wanted to systematize the events which could fall into the category of new theatre tendencies when theatre and the young are in question, one would notice that Bitef Polyphony has consisted of all the hints which have turned into the desired framework of the strategic developments, the models yet to be reached. Time will tell if Bitef Polyphony, as well as the festival itself, has grown into being a concept which, in the eyes of the new generations, represents both the history and the future of the theatre.