Odin Teatret in the Community: Barter and Festuge

Abstract

A feature seen repeatedly in the Odin Teatret’s philosophy is a belief that its working conditions and the people it meets reflexively focus the Odin’s identity both as a group and as individuals. Although another part of this book examined how training and the pedagogical work to which it relates has developed over the years, the fundamental premise of the actor’s presence is linked to a social context, because

in the beginning, we wanted an actor who could work miracles, conscious of his own body, his instrument. A misguided way of thinking because the more we are conscious of our body, the more we become blocked. Freedom is forgetting our own person and going beyond ourselves to reach another, in security, without fear. For us from the Odin, the theatre is this reciprocal presence. It is the relationship that we establish between us. Not theories, not methods - just this relationship. A relationship within, and a relationship towards others, which changes according to the realities, the conditions and the people we meet. (Barba, 1979, p. 137)