Bitef

BITEF POLIFONIJA

PROGRAMME

Friday, 26 September 11:00 Special Prison Hospital/Troupe Wizards of O.Z. and NGO ApsArt, Belgrade, Serbia WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON, PETER? Forum performance Project author: Aleksandra Jelic, director NGO ApsArt Cast: Wizards of O.Z. (convicts in the Special Prison Hospital of the District Penitentiary in Belgrade) Location: District Prison, Belgrade Duration: 1 h 30' Predstava zatvorenog tipa In the Forum performance, conceived and performed by convicts in the Special Prison Hospital, we follow the story of a young convict named Petar who tries to stand up to the pressures of the prison environment. The production is based on techniques of the Theatre of the Oppressed as a specific form of the theatre of social action, and uses personal stories as material for this live theatre of change. Every man is capable of changing. Even the worst can become virtuous just as the best can fall. The audience can offer its solutions which are acted out and tested. The act of theatre thus becomes the joint "testing for reality". ApsArt NGO in Belgrade was founded with the view to engaging in creative theatre work with convicts and wards of correctional facilities and prisons in Serbia. This form of applied theatre in the shape of theatre workshops started in March 2006 in the Special Prison Hospital in Belgrade. The attendants are mostly convicts, drug addicts sentenced to compulsory treatment. The workshop succeeded in going beyond an ad hoc artistic project and imposed itself as a continuing method of rehabilitation and resocialisation. This organisation presented its work with a group of convicts at BITEF Polyphony 2007. The title of the presentation was the Wizards of O.Z. (O.Z. Okruzni Zatvor - District Prison) and it has now become the name of the ensemble.

Foto: Marko Krojaè