The rich program of POLIS Teatro Festival follows the performances with moments of meeting with 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.

POLIS offers thematic workshops in English led by guest artists, designed to actively engage the educational community in Ravenna. Over time, in collaboration with the Department of Cultural Heritage at the University of Bologna, and in particular with the Master’s programme in International Cooperation on Human Rights and Intercultural Heritage, the festival has launched participatory projects such as RightsQuake (2021), Beyond boundaries (2022), GAIA (2023), Observing the catastrophe (2024) and Copla (2025). These projects offer international students a space for direct engagement with the practices of artists and scholars from the contemporary scene, transforming the festival into a venue for raising awareness of the pressing issues of the present through the languages of theatre.

For 2026, the festival offers international students from the Master I-Contact, the Liceo artistico-musicale “Nervi-Severini”, and students from the associations Spotted Unibo and Dedalo of Ravenna workshops with the performer Siim Tõniste, an Estonian artist whose interdisciplinary practice spans dance, performance, choreography, and curatorial work. Active on the Estonian performing arts scene since 2009, he places great value on collaboration and collective creation, and his projects often engage deeply with local communities and shared identities.

In this workshop, toghether with Siim Tõniste, participants collaboratively construct a temporary fairground from shared and personal memories, both real and imagined at the MAR – Ravenna City Art Museum.
These bits and pieces will be chosen, contained, and carefully preserved like canned fruit, then used as building blocks to transform the physical space. Through hands-on activities combining collective imagination, nostalgia, and decision-making, participants will test the dramaturgical mechanics of this assembly process, exploring how individual impulses merge into a shared form.

The results of the workshop will be presented with Tivoli on Saturday 9 May and Sunday 10 May at 4.30 pm at MAR.

The workshop for I-Contact students is supported by the University of Bologna – DBC.