The 6th edition of POLIS confirms the festival’s European vocation by bringing to Ravenna’s most prestigious cultural venues some of the most interesting artists of the international contemporary theater scene, overlooking a very particular and heterogeneous geographical area, the Balkans.
Pursuing the utopia of creating bridges between countries, cultures and ethnicities through the power of the theater, we find in the city of Ravenna the gateway to the fundamental dialogue between East and West, which is now more indispensable than ever.
For these reasons, this year’s drawing by Gianluca Costantini features a young girl with a star in her hands. A star that in the past and in other places has taken on different colors, but that POLIS wants yellow as a wish for a Europe of peace among peoples and towards our planet. A wish we want to cultivate for the future.
POLIS Teatro Festival 2023 will take place between May 2 and 7, with an extraordinary epilogue on June 10-11, in collaboration with Ravenna Festival, opening to a larger program and to new spaces among the city. Among the most prominent guests are two of the most provocative artists of the Southeastern European theater scene: the director Oliver Frljić, with Damned Be the Traitor to His Homeland!, a performance about the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, which 13 years after its debut continues to tour the world’s most important stages; and the playwright Jeton Neziraj, who brings to Italy for the first time his play dedicated to the tradition of Sworn Virgins, relating it to contemporary gender issues and show business. They are joined by the national premieres of: Branko Šimić, a versatile artist who reflects on the transition from socialism to post-capitalism through a special perspective; Gemma Hansson Carbone, with an itinerant performance based on the poem Die like a country by the great author Dimitris Dimitriadis; the French collective Zone -Poème-, co-produced and hosted by POLIS with a performance of the international project Ennemi; and the new promise of Slovenian documentary theater Žiga Divjak with a performance about the Balkan migration route.
Also included among the co-productions of the festival are the latest two works of ErosAntEros: the multidisciplinary performance LIBYA and the new site-specific project, GAIA, dedicated to planet Earth. Completing the focus: Roberta Biagiarelli in a special project for high schools about the Srebrenica’s genocide, and a monologue by the young Italian-Albanian actor Klaus Martini in the wonderful set of the Teatro Socjale.
A very rich program that, thanks to the national networks In-Box and L’Italia dei Visionari, gives space to emerging artists, and enriches the the performances with moments of meeting with artists, critics and scholars, training activities and participatory projects, in a perspective of inclusion and active citizenship that has been the festival’s soul since its first edition.
Davide Sacco and Agata Tomšič / ErosAntEros
