The Citizen Arts International Festival announces Serve and Protect from Direct Action Theatre, a two-day community workshop from September 10-11, 2026, and three performances in pop-up locations on September 12 and 13, 2026. The events are free and open to the public. For more information, please visit https://www.citizenartsinternational.org/serve-and-protect.

Serve and Protect is a playful public intervention by Direct Action Theatre (Norway) that transforms familiar symbols of authority into moments of surprise, humor, and collective reflection. Through choreography, visual theater, and unexpected encounters in public spaces, performers invite audiences to reimagine what it means to serve and protect one another, our communities, nature, and the shared spaces we inhabit.

Blurring the boundaries between performance and civic engagement, Serve and Protect includes a two-day workshop in performance activism. Bringing together community members, artists, and others interested in creative civic engagement, the workshop explores movement, public space, and collective action, informing the spirit of the project’s performances and public interventions.

Over two days, participants will talk, move, experiment, play, and create together. The workshop may include movement, dance, discussion, improvisation, and other non-verbal activities. Together, the group will develop a public performance action in response to ideas and issues that matter to the community.