L'Odin Teatret tra Italia e Danimarca

The present paper focuses on some of the most significant stages in the evolution of Odin Teatret, from a small experimental theatre group, founded by the Italian director Eugenio Barba and since 1966 financed and housed by the municipality of Holstebro in Denmark, to the Nordic Theatre Laboratory actively involved in the most advanced dramaturgic research and experiences of the second half of the 20th century. Today Barba and his enclave have the status of one of the great master currents in contemporary theatre and are identified as a Danish ensemble in spite of the different origin and languages of its components. The paper pays special attention to the turning point represented in the history of Odin Teatret by the practice of bartering started by the group in Italy during its encounter with peripheral cultural expressions and later developed into forms of artistic exchange and especially into the foundation of theatre anthropological studies. Although Odin Teatret’s inspiration keeps loyal to its origin as an outsider group, the article gives a synthetic account of the degree in which Eugenio Barba’s long cooperation with both Italian and Danish scholars has produced a kind of osmotic process across the national borders.