Visit the Archive –
an interactive journey through Odin Teatret’s artistic discoveries
Explore the history of Odin Teatret documented by a series of different medias, such as photos, video, letters and notes. The Odin Teatret Archives showcases Odin Teatret’s visions, multifaceted activities and its net of relationships covering a period of over fifty years.
Odin Teatret Archives’ first steps consisted in collecting and classifying paper documents.
First a Fonds Barba was established with all the documents preserved and personally ordered by Barba over a period of more than fifty years. It deals to a large extent (but not exclusively) with materials connected to his work with Odin Teatret: performances (sketches, notes, readings, etc); his relationship with the Polish director Jerzy Grotowski with whom Barba did his apprenticeship (letters, essays, typed scripts); honorary degrees, honours and prizes received ; personal documents; notebooks, sketches and photos; materials related to the text of performances; transcripts of his lectures; his articles, essays and newspaper cuttings about him. The OTA also keep Eugenio Barba’s correspondence which is not yet accessible for obvious motives of privacy but which, when available in the future, will make it possible to reconstruct relationships, shared problems, topics, reflections and phases of development concerning Odin Teatret and the milieu of which it is a part and a catalyst.
At the same time, a Fonds Odin Teatret was started, including all documents kept by the theatre: press cuttings; materials for the journal “Teatrets Teori og Teknikk” published by Odin Teatret in the period 1965-1974; letters from spectators; documents about the various ISTA sessions (International School of Theatre Anthropology); texts of performances; documents about the organisation of the big seminars in the 1960s (with Jerzy Grotowski, Jean-Louis Barrault, Etienne Decroux, Jacques Lecoq, Dario Fo, the brothers Colombaioni and others), and in the 1970s (with Balinese, Indian, Japanese artists and ensembles); documents related to film projects and shooting; actors’ notes, proposals and sketches about the training or the creation of a performance, etc.
Besides these two rather copious Funds, the OTA preserve a Fonds Iben Nagel Rasmussen, with materials concerning in particular her performances which do not involve the whole of Odin Teatret, and her activity as leader of the theatre group Farfa which gathered around her between 1980 and 1990.
Finally, a Fonds Cristina Wistari Formaggia was created in 2008. After her death, her brother and sister, whom we wish to thank once again, left to OTA the documents concerning her activities as dancer and supporter of the classical theatre-dance form Gambuh in Bali. Consultation of the documents at the Odin Teatret Archives has been facilitated by a series of “inventories” (published on this site as work in progress). These inventories describe and contextualise the patrimony of documents and audio-visuals, as well as the maze of historical situations, coincidences and contingencies from which they were born. All OTA’s documents may be consulted by scholars, students, practitioners and any interested person by writing to Odin Teatret. The only exception is Eugenio Barba’s correspondence after 1975, where the authorisation of the recipient is needed. The correspondence cannot be quoted or published without the authorisation of both the sender and the recipient.
