OPEN FOR APPLICATIONS
NAVIGATING RESISTANCE
Theatre-Women-Exercices in Poetry
3 August (arrival) – 10 August (departure) 2026
A seven-day festival and meeting at Stendis Lejren, Vinderup, Denmark
With: Ana Woolf (Argentina), Antinia Cioaza (Rumania/Denmark), Brigitte Cirla (France), Dina Abu Hamdan (Jordan/Denmark), Dorthe Kærgaard (Denmark), Geddy Aniksdal (Norway), Giovanna Zanchetta (Italy), Jill Greenhalgh (UK) Julia Varley (UK/Denmark), Maristella Martella (Italy), Odin Teatret (Denmark), Samaneh Zandinejad (Iran)
With the support of Holstebro Kommune
PUBLIC OPEN PERFORMANCES:
Monday 3 August
19:00-20:00 – DOÑA MUSICA’S BUTTERFLIES – Odin Teatret (Denmark)
Performance with Julia Varley, Director: Eugenio Barba
Tuesday 4 August
19:00-20:00 – BEHIND THE CURTAIN – Ana Woolf (Argentina)
Work demonstration with Ana Woolf, Director: Julia Varley
Wednesday 5 August
19:00-20:00 – RECETTES IMMORALES – Voix Polyphoniques (France)
Concert with Brigitte Cirla and Sébastien Béranger
Thursday 6 August
19:00-20:00 – RITUALS – Maristella Martella (Italy)
Performance with Maristella Martella, Directors: Christian Angeli and Francesca Turrisia
21:30 – FILM: “A Character that Cannot Die” about Odin Teatret’s Mr Peanut
Friday 7 August
19:00-19:30 – PLAGG FOR PLAGG – FOLKEMINNE (Clothes Revisited – Collective Memory) – Grenland Friteater (Norway)
Research project with Geddy Aniksdal
20:45-21:30 – VENT ROUGE – Collettivo Overlimbs (Italy)
Work in progress with Giovanna Zanchetta and Chiara Ferlito
Saturday 8 August
19:00-19:40 – BLUTFÄDEN – Ria Sachadae (Germany)
Performance with and by Ria Sachadae, Choreographer and dramaturg: Giovanna Zanchetta
21:00-22:00 – COMPASSION – Odin Teatret (Denmark)
Performance with Julia Varley, Director: Eugenio Barba
Sunday 9 August
11:00-12:00 – THE THRILLING VIOLINISTS – Odin Teatret (Denmark)
Performance with Antonia Cioaza and Jakob Nielsen, Director: Sergio Bustric
12:30-12:50 – Les versets terrestres
Work in progress with Brigitte Cirla and Sébastien Béranger
20:00-20:30 – NAVIGATING RESISTANCE
Sharing poems with Brigitte Cirla, Geddy Aniksdal and Julia Varley
INFORMATION ON ARTISTS AND PERFORMANCES
THE MAGDALENA PROJECT
The Magdalena Project is a network of women in contemporary theatre that exists since 1986, directed and initiated by Jill Greenhalgh. The aims of The Magdalena Project include enabling women to produce work that more profoundly reflects their own experience and creating a forum for women’s work in theatre to be seen. In its forty years of existence the network has connected women and developed activities all over the world. Festivals in Norway in 1989, Cardiff in 1994, New Zealand in 1999, Australia and Colombia in 2003 could be mentioned as visible and impressive examples together with the books by Susan Bassnett, by Chris Fry, the 14 issues of The Open Page, and the book Legacy and Challenge – Magdalena@25.
JILL GREENHALGH has been a professional theatre maker since 1978. Her career as a performer, director and producer has primarily focused on experimental physical practice. The specific interest in the performance work being developed by women resulted in the foundation, in 1986, of The Magdalena Project. She has toured her own performances, and led workshops, extensively within Europe, Australasia and the Americas, throughout these years. As director and producer her most recent performance projects include: The Acts—Vigia, a performance project created as a response to the murders of hundreds of young women in and around the US Mexico border town of Juarez, The Threat of Silence and The Book of Space which investigated quietude and landscape in performance and Daughter, a project made with local communities of performers and non-performers focusing on personal stories of mother and daughter relationships. Jill was full-time Lecturer in Performance Studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (2002–16), specialising in devised physical performance, women’s theatre and actor training. She and her dog live on the west coast of rural Wales.
TRANSIT NEXT FORUM – THEATRE AND WOMEN
On the 3rd of December 2021 an official meeting was held at Holstebro Art Museum for the creation of the association Transit Next Forum – Theatre and Women, with home in Holstebro Municipality, active in Denmark, with close international contact to The Magdalena Project and its network. Transit Next Forum is the official framework for future Transit festivals following the tradition established since the first Transit Festival in 1992 and will create a greater continuity of activities in connection with The Magdalena Project network. Those who want to be members of Transit Next Forum and in this or other way support the association are welcome to write to info@transitforum.dk
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TRANSIT FESTIVAL
Transit mini Festival 3 (4-11 August 2025) – Sparks of Imagination – Theatre, Women, Intention – Participants and invited artists confronted the relationship between hidden stories, references and starting points, and the perceptible stage presence and dramaturgical structures. The Transit mini Festival 2025 took place in Stendis Lejren, for 40 participants. Transit mini Festival 2 (27 July-3 August 2024) – The Secret Room – Theatre, Women, Poetry – Poetry introduces an essential and synthetic exchange through rhyme, music, words, composition and actions to open vast horizons of possible interpretation. The Transit mini Festival 2024 took place in Stendis Lejren, for 20 participants. Transit mini Festival 1 (9-13 August 2023) – Poetry in Space – Theatre, Women, Composition – Poetry in Space is theatre in its broadest meaning. Composition is a tool which accompanies the paths of artistic discovery. The Transit mini Festival 2023 took place in Stendis Lejren, for 20 participants. Transit 10 (3-12 June 2022) – The Splendour of the Ages – Theatre, Women, Courage – Women of all ages were invited to surprise older and younger practitioners and scholars, and keep everyone dancing in wonder on the tip of their toes. Transit 9 (12-23 June 2019) – Hope in Action – Theatre, Women, Will – Transit 9 programme enhanced a sense of hope for the future of theatre craft in a time crisis and disillusionment, when the voice of women can contribute an alternative point of view. Transit 8 (1-12 June 2016) – Beauty as a Weapon – Theatre, Women, Conflict – Transit 8 combined the word ‘beauty’ with ‘weapon’ to question how conflict can result in a change of tension, a struggle to learn, an affirmation of generosity. Transit 7 (28 May – 9 June August 2013) – Risk, Crisis, Invention – In the making of theatre, crisis, risk and invention are essential steps in any creative process which demands rigour and engagement. Transit 6 (2 – 16 August 2009) –Theatre – Women – On the Periphery – Transit 6 invited performances who are geographically and artistically placed on the periphery. Transit 5 (18 – 28 January 2007) – Stories to Be Told – Stories need to be told to give face and voice to people whose identity would otherwise only be defined by numbers. Transit 4 (15 – 25 January 2004) – Roots in Transit – Transit 4proposed an image of active, germinating, sprouting roots that point outwards, forwards and upwards. Transit 3 (18 – 28 January 2001) – Theatre – Women – Generations – Transit 3 explored what and how we can learn from each other, and what experiences can be shared across the generations. Transit 2 (5 – 9 November 1997) – Theatre – Women – Politics – This Festival was an occasion to meet theatre women practitioners, artists, intellectuals and scholars who in different ways are politically or socially engaged. Transit 1 (1 – 5 November 1992) – Directors and the Dynamic Patterns of Theatre Groups – What are Women Proposing? Transit 1continued the debate started within The Magdalena Project on women and theatre directing.
On performances in the order of being presented
ODIN TEATRET (Denmark)
Odin Teatret was created in Oslo, Norway, in 1964, and moved to Holstebro (Denmark) in 1966, changing its name to Nordic Theatre Laboratory/Odin Teatret. In December 2022 Odin Teatret and Eugenio Barba left Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium to continue its activities autonomously in Denmark and abroad. Odin Teatret has so far created 81 performances, performed in 65 countries and different social contexts. In the course of these experiences, a specific Odin culture has grown, founded on cultural diversity and the practice of “barter”: Odin actors present themselves through their work to a particular milieu which, in return, replies with songs, music and dances from its own local culture. The barter is an exchange of cultural manifestations and offers not only an insight into the other’s forms of expression, but is equally a social interaction which defies prejudices, linguistic difficulties and differences in thinking, judging and behaving.
Eugenio Barba was born in 1936 in Italy and moved to Norway in 1954. In 1961 he went to Poland and stayed with Jerzy Grotowski for three years. In 1963 he travelled to India where he studied Kathakali. He returned to Oslo and created Odin Teatret in October 1964, directing 79 productions. In 1979 Eugenio Barba founded ISTA, International School of Theatre Anthropology, thus opening a new field of studies: Theatre Anthropology. Eugenio Barba has been awarded honorary doctorates from 13 Universities and the Sonning Prize from the University of Copenhagen. In 2020, together with Julia Varley, he has established Fondazione Barba Varley whose aim is to support people who are disadvantaged by gender, ethnicity, geography, age, way of thinking and acting inside and outside theatre.
Antonia Cioază was born in Romania where she graduated as an actress at Babes-Baliay University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. In 2021 she moved to Denmark and started working as an actor at Odin Teatret in 2022 participating in Hamlet’s Clouds directed by Eugenio Barba. With Jakob Nielsen, she has created the family performance The Thrilling Violinists, directed by Sergio Bini Bustric. Antonia Cioază assists Julia Varley for the organisation of Transit Festival.
Jakob Nielsen is Danish. He has a master’s degree in literature and worked four years in Holstebro with the theatre group Ikarus Stage Arts directed by Carolina Pizarro. Since 2022 he is an actor at Odin Teatret participating in Hamlet’s Clouds directed by Eugenio Barba. With Antonia Cioază, he has created the family performance The Thrilling Violinists, directed by Sergio Bini Bustric.
Julia Varley joined Odin Teatret in 1976. Apart from acting she is active in directing, teaching, organising and writing. Since 1990 she has been involved in the conception and organisation of ISTA (International School of Theatre Anthropology) and of the University of Eurasian Theatre, both directed by Eugenio Barba. Since its beginning in 1986 she has been active in The Magdalena Project. She has directed performances with Pumpenhaus Theater (Germany), Ana Woolf (Argentina), Hisako Miura (Japan), Lorenzo Gleijeses and Manolo Muoio (Italy), Gabriella Sacco (Italy), Carolina Pizarro (Chile), Marilyn Nunes (Brazil), Amaranta Osorio and Teresa García (Mexico-Spain), Teresa Ruggeri (Italy), C.ia Pessoal de Teatro (Brazil) and The Jasonites. Julia Varley has written five books published in various languages: Wind in the West, Notes of an Odin Actress – Stones of Water, An actress and her characters, Thinking with the Feet (with Vicky Ann Cremona and Francesco Galli), Genius Loci (with Eugenio Barba and Francesco Galli). In 2020 she creates Fondazione Barba Varley and in 2021 Transit Next Forum. She is on the editorial board of The Open Page and Journal of Theatre Anthropology.
DOÑA MUSICA’S BUTTERFLIES
Actor: Julia Varley – Text and stage design: Julia Varley -Musical arrangement: Jan Ferslev; Frans Winther – Lighting: Knud Erik Knudsen -Director: Eugenio Barba – Duration: 55 min. – Performed in English
Doña Musica’s Butterflies is a performance about identity which the protagonist defines as a tendency to exist. It is the story of a character who has escaped from a performance – Kaosmos – and tells of her origins and adventures in terms of entomology, through theories of modern physics and with poems and tales from other times.
Film “A Character that Cannot Die”
A biography of Mr Peanut – Dedicated to Marco Donati, Mette Jensen and Velda Noli
Actor: Julia Varley – Film: Claudio Coloberti – Director: Eugenio Barba
The film A Character that Cannot Die materialises births, adventures, deaths and resurrections of Mr Peanut, the character with a skull head, who has participated for over fifty years in Odin Teatret’s performances, often as a protagonist. In noisy streets and silent rooms, the film reveals to us Mr Peanut’s many grotesque, tragic, but also lively incarnations during his journey on this planet. Death presents Mr Peanut, the character that for fifty years has participated in many of Odin Teatret’s performances.
THE THRILLING VIOLINISTS
Actors: Antonia Cioază and Jakob Nielsen – Concept and director: Sergio Bini Bustric
An adventurous journey in the magic of theatre, a performance for children, adults, old people and families who like to smile and laugh. The story of two young would-be violinists whose imagination makes them dialogue with bananas and soap-bubbles. They discover the visible and invisible life of objects and finally the music of love that will allow them to fly.
COMPASSION
Eros, the divinity of antiquity, had many natures, in addition to that of passion: friendship and tenderness, affection and solidarity, sympathy and admiration. Compassion, Odin Teatret’s solo performance with Julia Varley and directed by Eugenio Barba, presents three situations of Eros in the form of compassion n. It is a triptych, three grotesque, painful and emblematic stories that come from the contemporary everyday life and from the darkness of myth.
First episode: a Yazid monk plants a tree in the desert to make the birds return. The tree grows but dead. Second episode: a Chechen refugee’s love for her husband who died at war. Third episode: Tiresias, blind and seer, recalls the fate of Oedipus and his daughter Antigone.
ANA WOOLF (Argentina)
Ana Woolf is a teacher, actress and director, and co-founder of Magdalena 2a Generación, a Latin American Network of Women in Contemporary Arts. In 1999 Ana Woolf moved to Denmark to study with Julia Varley who directed her in two performances and a work demonstration. Ana Woolf lived in Europe for some years, also working as assistant director for Eugenio Barba in three international projects and for Odin Teatret’s 50th anniversary. Ana Woolf returned to Argentina in 2011. She has developed a special training based on Asian techniques and Latin American rhythms, and leads workshops all around the world. As a director, she has worked with professional actors in different countries, and has established CATA (Centro de Antropología Teatral en Argentina), active since 2022.
BEHIND THE CURTAINS (Work demonstration)
Actor: Ana Woolf – Director: Julia Varley – Duration: 55 min. – Performed in English and Spanish
What is behind the curtains? The magic world of theatre and presence; the real world of obstinate daily training, so as to be able to say “I’m here and now” on the stage; the actress on her feet, wearing the shoes of her characters. This work demonstration is an invitation to follow the years of training necessary to acquire a craft, meeting the actress’s different faces. It speaks of chaos, difficulties and ways to solve them, attempts and failures; and in particular it tells about the encounter with the actress’s teachers, touching upon topics like discipline and emotions during preparation and at the moment of facing the spectators. The actress will present fragments of some of her performances with the intent of understanding and of better visualizing the all-mysterious moment of passage from technique to stage fiction.
VOIX POLYPHONIQUES (France)
Voix Polyphoniques was created in 1991 by Brigitte Cirla. Since 1996 the company resides in La Friche Belle de Mai in Marseille, France. The company has created, produced and toured about thirty different musical theatre performances. Voix Polyphoniques also participates in different European projects and leads choirs.
Brigitte Cirla began a career as a singer and actress after an education in classical piano. Brigitte’s passion for both a cappella song and contemporary composition, led her to create Voix Polyphoniques in 1991 and other vocal groups. As a teacher and choir director, Brigitte has led numerous workshops for amateurs and professionals in France and Europe, she dedicates herself to a continuous musical research on a cappella traditional polyphonic singing and contemporary compositions for voice. Brigitte writes most of the performances of her company in collaboration with composers and recently has been working as well for musical performances for open air spaces. She is a founding member of The Magdalena Project.
Sébastien Béranger was born in Reims in 1977. He studied at the conservatories of Reims and Lille. Then, he joined the composition class at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP) where he was awarded of music analysis, instrumental composition and composition with new technologies. He synthetizes, confronts, and merge the idioms of spectral music, post serialism, and post modal tendencies. Like a sculptor, he works within space to create a metaphorical representation of different musical elements (pitch, duration, dynamics).
RECETTES IMMORALES
Performers: Brigitte Cirla and Sébastien Béranger
Literature, especially poetry, is full of texts on the pleasures of food, the voluptuousness of wine, the ambiguity of the art of seduction and its relationship to good food. There are numerous French expressions and synonyms: devouring, swallowing, nibbling, ingesting, gorging, eating, biting, lunching or dining, tasting, slurping, pecking, gulping, eating with relish. Gourmets are everywhere! The act of sitting down at the table produces a multitude of innuendos in our childish imaginations. Together Brigitte Cirla and Sébastien Béranger have created a musical show on this ambiguous theme, the theme suggested by the sensual, poetic and nourishing pleasures of the mouth.
Immoral Recipes is based on the book of the same name by Manuel Vásquez Montalbán. In his preface, the author states that “Each of these recipes is a bid for an alternative morality, a hedonistic morality that is within the reach of the disciples of instant gratification, consisting as it does in the use and perhaps even the abuse of basic knowledge: knowing how to cook, how to eat, attempting to learn to love…”.
MARISTELLA MARTELLA (Italy)
Maristella Martella is a dancer, choreographer and director of Compagnia Tarantarte. In 2001, with Eugenio Bennato, she founded one of the first tarantella schools in Italy. She develops her research on dances from Southern Italy and their representation. She creates, dreams, and combines the past with the present, classical and contemporary, popular elements from South Italy with elements from the Mediterranean world. She studies the phenomenon of Tarantism and the mystery of trance.
RITUALS
Performer: Maristella Martella – Directors: Christian Angeli and Francesca Turrisi
Rituals presents a body in motion between memory and ritual, a choreographic performance conceived and performed by Maristella Martella, an artist recognised for her research into the pizzica salentina, tarantism, and popular ritual dance. Starting from an anthropological investigation of the tarantism ritual – in which the pizzica was a collective experience of healing and trance until the 1960s – Maristella Martella shifts her focus from technique to the symbolic and transformative dimension of movement. Rituals explores the tension between identity, escape, and a return to cultural roots, offering audiences an intense and engaging scenic narrative.
ANJA DEMIDOVA (Russia/Germany)
Anja Demidova is a Berlin-based performer, theatre director and interdisciplinary artist. Trained in classical drama and the Stanislavski tradition, she later moved toward physical theatre and contemporary performance, developing a practice that bridges psychological precision with a highly physical, image-driven stage language. As a performer, she works at the intersection of text, voice and movement, creating through devising processes and ensemble-based research, where stage presence, rhythm and transformation are as important as narrative. Alongside theatre, she works in performance art and develops hybrid formats that blur the line between staged fiction and lived reality. She also runs educational projects and mentoring formats for theatre-makers, sharing practical knowledge on production and mobility. Anja is the author of the Telegram channel Делай Театр (“Make Theatre”), where she curates grants, open calls and international opportunities for theatre professionals worldwide. In parallel, she continues to create her own productions as a director, leading international ensembles and collaborative processes. Website: www.anjademifova.com
ultimate russian protest guide: deluxe golden edition
Actors: Ilja Khodyrev, Yanina Akhkh, Anja Demidova – Director: Masha Sapizhak
Created collectively by Russian artists, focused on resistance in Russia today, this project is a documentary performance about the everyday lives of anonymous activists operating inside and outside Russia. Based on real interviews, it tells stories of people whose names cannot be revealed for security reasons and who nevertheless continue to resist. The focus is on grassroots, horizontal movements without leadership, working like a network of roots or mycelium. Through humour, pop culture references, arcade aesthetics, and interactive formats (such as quizzes and small ‘missions’ for the audience), the piece aims to create an emotional connection and offer insight into the lived reality of activism under repression.
Masha Sapizhak is a theatre maker, performance artist, and theatre educator, born in 1992 in Arkhangelsk (Russia), she now lives in Berlin. In her artistic work, Masha explores practices of resistance, solidarity, and empowerment from a feminist perspective. She works in a multidisciplinary manner and uses drama and documentary theatre methods, contemporary dance, digital media, performative approaches, participatory practices, and gamification in her projects, also seeing humour as a powerful tool. In Germany, she has worked with the English Theater Berlin, Gorki Theater, Theater Strahl, Hellerau, Ballhaus Prinzenallee, and Theater an der Parkaue, among others. In 2022–2023, she was a scholarship holder of the Martin Roth Initiative. In 2025–2026, she was awarded a scholarship of ”Weltoffenes Berlin” Program. Her production “Wir holen uns die Nacht zurück” (premiere in 2024) was awarded the two IKARUS Prizes by the Expert and Youth Jury. Website: https://readymag.website/mashasapizhak/portfolio/
Arina Slobodianik is a scenographer and visual artist, based in Berlin and working internationally. As a designer, she explores storytelling through space, using interdisciplinary approaches and diverse mediums. She has designed sets and costumes for over 40 productions across Russia, the USA, and Europe, including projects at the Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis, USA), Theater Strahl (Berlin), and the Maxim Gorki Theater Studio Я (Berlin), among others. In addition to her work in theatre as a scenographer, she has also contributed as a production designer in film and as a video and animation artist for selected theatre productions. Arina holds an MFA in Fine Arts in Stage Design from the University of Minnesota, where she was a recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship. She also earned a Specialist degree in Scenography from the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts in Saint Petersburg.
Janina Ahh Akhmetova is a multilingual actress and performer working between film, documentary theatre, and contemporary performance. Her artistic practice focuses on autobiographical material, embodied storytelling, and social themes such as migration, memory, motherhood, and resilience. She combines screen acting with physical and documentary-based performance formats and often work in international and intercultural contexts.
Ilya Khodyrev is a Berlin-based actor, director, and acting teacher. Born and trained in Russia, he left his home country in 2022 and has since established himself as a compelling voice in European independent theatre. Ilya brings a rich and versatile performance background to every project. His practice spans playful, documentary, and physical theatre, shaped by rigorous training rooted in Russian theatrical pedagogy and expanded through masterclasses with Jan Fabre (intensive performer training, 2021) and Christopher Vogler (directing and screenwriting, 2021). His work engages themes of exile, political violence, LGBTQ+ rights, and the radical potential of vulnerability.
GRENLAND FRITEATER (Norway)
Grenland Friteater was founded in 1976 in Porsgrunn, Norway. The purpose of Grenland Friteater is not only to make innovative, entertaining and thought provoking performances, but also to contribute to the development of a new theatre culture in rural Norway. A relevant, direct and challenging theatre culture that does not pay homage to theatre conventions and debate in central Norway. Our goal is to have a theatre that is so alive that it communicates across linguistic and cultural boundaries and is so strong that it is not broken by the random changes of trend. Grenland Friteater is an independent theatre supported by Porsgrunn city, Telemark county, Norwegian Arts Council and The Ministry of Culture.
Geddy Aniksdal is an actor, director and educator. She came to Grenland Friteater in the spring of 1981 and is one of five owners of the theatre. She has been in all the main productions since the beginning. Since 1986, she has created solo performances that tour internationally and are performed in both English and Spanish. Geddy Aniksdal has also directed many performances. For the past ten years, Geddy Aniksdal has been the artistic director of the Stedsans project, a cross-artistic urban development project which has so far had an impact in Porsgrunn, Ålesund, Drammen and Sarpsborg, as well as twice in Santa Clara in Cuba. She has published a number of articles in The Open Page and has been involved in The Magdalena Project since its inception in 1986.
PLAGG FOR PLAGG (Clothes Revisited)
Research project with Geddy Aniksdal and Geir Bremer Øvrebø – Text: Geddy Aniksdal – Music: Geir Bremer Øvrebø – Dramaturgy: Lars Vik
Geddy raps and snaps, stutters and slams, slurs and spells her way through childhood and growing up in the shadow of the Factory. She strips away history, garment by garment. Geir Bremer Øvrebø hammers and slams on the keyboards.
Geir Bremer Øvrebø is known as an original music composer. Some of his work includes Medium Raw. He studied at Fagerborg school and at Oslo University.
GIOVANNA ZANCHETTA (Italy)
Giovanna Zanchetta is a performer, dancer and choreographer based in Rome, where she graduated with honours in Performing Arts at Rome 3 University. She has been working professionally since 2015, combining dance and theatre and figurative arts in her performances and workshops. She studied modern, classical, and contemporary dance at the Henny Jurriens Foundation (Amsterdam) and VivoBallet School (Rome), furthering her training at the Scuola Auditorium Ballet in Verona with international choreographers such as Dominique Lesdema, Luke Brown, and Gaëlle Gillieron. Her artistic research expanded through practices of Butoh Dance studying with Alessandra Cristiani and Physical Theater, with Vali Theatre Lab and Julia Varley (Odin Teatret), and improving her vocal technique with Brigitte Cirla and Bruno De Franceschi. Recently, she took part in the theatre production Elsewhere and the European project Spores, directed by Alice Occhiali and Valerio Peroni in Denmark. Her performances have been presented in various festivals such as: REF, ScenArte International Festival of Urban Theatre, Japanese Ghost, and DominioPubblico.
VENT ROUGE – Collettivo Overlimbs (Italy)
Work in progress with Giovanna Zanchetta, Chiara Ferlito, Afra Pieri – Authors: Chiara Ferlito, Giovanna Zanchetta – Scenic movement: Giovanna Zanchetta – Music and vocal coach: Afra Pieri – Painting and body painting: Chiara Ferlito – Texts: Wallada bint al-Mustakfi, Li Qingzhao, Bahāʼ al-Dīn Majrūḥ, Nina Cassian, Audre Lorde and others.
A choral song that combines theatre, visual art, dance and music to give new life and breath to female poetry and writers of the past. Vent rouge (Red Wind) is a metaphor representing feminine energy that transcends time and culture. The project stems from an urgent need to delve into the words of female writers of the past, restoring to them the disruptive power of gestures, sounds and images that challenged the conventions of their time. The two authors and performers, Giovanna Zanchetta and Chiara Ferlito, become the medium for a collective narrative, blending their languages in an organic and primordial flow, accompanied by the musical compositions of Afra Pieri. There are no fixed roles, just a fluid interchange, like the wind that gives the project its name, evoking feminine sensitivity, fickle, passionate, capable of digging deep furrows. A fragile balance between chaos and control, between the urge to shout and the modesty of whispering. Vent Rouge is a manifesto that celebrates imperfection, the unfinished gesture, the ephemeral beauty of what resists. An invitation to recognise, in the folds of history, the thrill of those who dared to change the world, a love letter to the silent courage that still blows today, red and tireless.
Overlimbs Project bio
Founded in 2020 by performer Giovanna Zanchetta, Overlimbs is an open ecosystem where different arts meet, contaminate, and transform each other. Rather than a fixed structure, it operates as an evolving organism bringing together dancers, musicians, videomakers, and performers across Rome, Amsterdam, and Berlin, who share the urgency of collective, porous, unconventional practice. Works include the performances Helicoidea (2021) and Aridità (2025); the dance short film Paradox 6, selected by Festival Dominio Pubblico (2021) as best digital dance proposal; and EssereMateria (2022), a performative happening created with Peloponneso Creative Group and Calpurnia APS in the post-industrial spaces of Ex-Mercato di Torrespaccata, Rome.
Chiara Ferlito, born in Rome (1997), graduated from the Ludwig Professional Acting Academy, simultaneously earning her Master’s in Theatre-Dance at Roma Tre. She also trained at the Physical Theatre Academy in Strasbourg, France. After graduation, she works as an actress-dancer for the StanzeBit company and collaborates with Teatro Palladium as an actress. Since 2024, she appears as correspondent/host in two series on Rai1. In 2024 she debuts “XY” by Chiara Ferlito and Matteo D’Incoronato and presents various performances combining art and poetry, one of these in the artistic residency 418 in Como. In 2025 she wins the Portrait On stage residency with her show Elena Helen and with the Racont’Art project in Montreal, Canada.
Afra Pieri is a musician, performer, graduated in psychology. She finds in art a profound way of research and connection to one’s self. Art thus becomes a tool for self-analysis that strengthens our capacities for expression, communication, and interaction with the world and with others. In her path that particularly includes disciplines such as singing, music, dance, and theatre, she begins to specialise in the study of voice, both in sonic and non-verbal terms as well as through words.
RIA SACHADAE (Germany)
Ria Sachadae was born in 2001 in Halle (Saale), Germany. Ria is studying Cultural and Media Education at Hochschule Merseburg. Beside studying, Ria performs locally, working collectively with a focus on queer feminist and marginalised views. Currently Ria is organising independently a self-initiated event series at her university for women and queers active in scenic arts, which will take place in October-December 2025. WUNDENTAUCHEN_BLUTFÄDEN is Ria’s final artistic work in the context of her studies and their first solo performance.
WUNDENTAUCHEN_BLUTFÄDEN
Performance with and by Ria Sachadae
Through Ria Sachadae’s own family history, the performance dives into emotional heritage and structural silences. It sheds some light on the many ways in which women and people affected by mental illnesses have been suppressed and pathologized during Nazi Germany and beyond. In moving through the ways these narratives still shape families and societies today, the performance looks for healing possibilities.
On talks in programme order
SAMANEH ZANDINEJAD (Iran/Germany) has an MA in Theatre Directing from Tarbiat Modares University Tehran, Iran Faculty of Arts, and a BA in Theatre Directing from Azad University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. She has worked as director and actor for numerous productions, and as teacher at the University of Tehran, Iran Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Performing Arts and at Tehran University of Art Tehran, Iran Faculty of Cinema and Theatre. She has received the Honorary diploma and award for Directing the play Special Relativity in the 3rd MonoLeev Theatre Festival Tehran in 2015 and the Honorary diploma and award for Directing the play Welcome to Brother’s Death Ceremony in the 30th Fadjr International Theatre Festival Tehran in 2012. In 2023 Samaneh left Iran and is currently living in Köln.
ALICE OCCHIALI (Italy/Denmark) is a theatre practitioner, actor, and trainer who, along with Valerio Peroni, founded the Váli Theatre Lab in 2019. Based in Holstebro, Denmark, the company focuses on physical training, performance art, and, specifically, the residential training project “The Path of Actions”.
CAROLINA PIZARRO (Chile/Denmark) is an actor and director who in 2017 founded Ikarus Stage Arts with Luis Alonso, initially as a cultural platform, consisting of short-term projects, residencies, and a network for performing artists from all over the world. Ikarus Stage Arts repertoire is very diverse, including street theatre, parades, theatrical concerts and stage performances, where music and movement is at the core. The performances have been shown in numerous events and festivals in Europe, Asia and America, addressing all sorts of audiences. Alongside performing, Ikarus Stage Arts also work with community art and social including projects that opens up for new human encounters; focusing on personal development and creating new communities through performing arts.
DORTHE KAERGAARD (Denmark) has illustrated all the Transit brochures. Her painting Transit gave the original title to the Festival. After working in Odin Teatret’s administration for fourteen years, she became a full-time painter. She is an artist who trusts her sub-consciousness and intuition with its own logic and peculiarities. She lives amidst the wonderful natural surroundings of Thyholm in North West Jutland, in Denmark. The interest in art stems from her father who taught art and was also himself a keen artist/draughtsman, but a great part of the raw material for her paintings was gathered in her formative years whilst living in Rome. The past twenty years her paintings – oil, watercolour, mixed media – have been exhibited all over Denmark.
DINA ABU HAMDAN (Jordan/Denmark) is a multi-disciplinary artistic director, a cultural development consultant, producer, an expert in working with local communities, championing strategic initiatives, leading art-residencies as well as making network events. As a theatre director and choreographer, Dina has an international portfolio of both small and ensemble performances as well as large-scale outdoor spectacles and events. She was the artistic director of the official closing ceremony of Aarhus 2017 European capital of culture in Denmark, Sugar Town performance marking the 40th anniversary of Carlow Arts Festival in Ireland; Motor Parkour a community theatre project in Vinderup town in Denmark, and lately VINTERLYS light festival in Ringkøbing Denmark. Dina founded LILITA Immersive lab for innovation in theatre and archive at Odin Teatret to investigate technology and theatre. Dina was assistant director to Eugenio Barba for the theatre performance Thebes at the Time of Yellow Fever and is currently an artist in residence and an artistic consultant at the Ringkøbing-Skjern municipality.
More information: https://transitforum.dk/festivals/transit-festival-mini-2026/