Eugenio Barba

Eugenio Barba was born in Brindisi on October 29, 1936, to a Gallipoli father and a Roman mother.
After the family moved to Gallipoli, his father, a military officer, died from the aftermath of a war wound. After this event, the family’s economic situation worsened considerably, but young Eugenio managed to complete his high school education.

Graduating from the Nunziatella Military School in Naples in 1954, he changed the course of his life by choosing to emigrate to Norway to work as a welder and sailor. He perfected his studies by graduating from the University of Oslo in French in Norwegian literature and history of religions.

In 1961 he went to Warsaw to attend the State Theater School, which he left in conjunction with his meeting with Jerzy Grotowski leader of Opole’s Teatr 13 Rzedow, whose student and friend he became.
In 1963 he made a trip to India that had much influence on his training and from which resulted an essay published in Italy, France, the United States and Denmark.

In 1965 he wrote “Grotowski in Search of the Lost Theater” published in Italy and Hungary. Back in Oslo he encountered great resistance to recognition of his status as a theater director. For this reason he inaugurated Odin Teatret on Oct. 1, 1964, in which he included a group of young actors who had failed the admission test at the State Theatre School. After the first production , “Ornithophilene,” the municipality of Holstebro in Denmark offered the company a small sum and an old farmhouse, which from then on became Odin Teatret’s official headquarters. For many years the study of themes and forms of expression gravitated to the official headquarters, where experimentation was taking place.

The second phase took place with a cultural and performance exchange with communities that lived very different realities. Privileged places include small towns in Salento such as Aradeo and Carpignano Salentino. In recent years the group has been traveling the world interacting with the cultural and anthropological resources of the places it touches.

Most important theatrical productions
To date there are over sixty productions that Eugenio Barba has directed.
The best known are: Ferai (1969), Min Fars Hus (1972),Le Ceneri di Brecht (1980), Il Gospel secondo Oxyrhincus (1985), Talabot (1988), Itsi Bitsi (1991), Kaosmos (1993), Mythos (1988) e più recentemente Sale (2002), Grandi Città sotto la Luna (2003), Il Sogno di Andersen (2005), Ur-Hamlet (2006), Don Giovanni all’Inferno (2006).

Bibliographical notes
ISTA (International School of Anthropological Theatre) founded by Eugenio Barba in 1979, with its publications is the subject of the interest of leading journals in the field. Among its many publications are: La Canoa di Carta; Teatro: Solitudine, Mestiere, Rivolta; Terra di Ceneri e Diamanti; Il mio apprendistato in Polonia; L’Arte Segreta dell’Attore; The Updated Edition: Un Dizionario di Antropologia Teatrale.
Eugenio Barba’s fame has spread to the point that today he is considered one of the most important exponents of contemporary world theater. This notoriety has brought him, among many other awards, the Sonning Prize, already awarded to such personalities as Chaurchill, Bernstein, Schweitzer, Russell, Bohr, Aalto and Popper. Other important awards include : the Danish Academy Award, the Mexican Theater Critics’ Award, the Diego Fabbri Award, the International Pirandello Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Popoli e Religioni Film Festival, and the Thalia Prize.
He has received the following honors: Cavaliere dell’Ordine della stella della solidarietà italiana , Commendatore Ordine al merito della Repubblica Italiana , Cittadinanza onoraria del Comune di Gallipoli. He has been awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Arhus, Ayacucho, Bologna, Havana, Warsaw, Plymouth (UK) Academy of Performing Arts Hong Kong and the “Reconnaissance de Mérite Scientifique” from the University of Montreal.