LAFLIS
On July 19th, 2022, Regione Puglia in Italy sanctioned the birth of a cultural partnership with Fondazione Barba Varley aimed at promoting, researching and studying the history of Odin Teatret, the Third Theatre and Eugenio Barba’s life and artistic career.
The partnership, which may also be extended to other private bodies and public institutions, provides for a scientific collaboration for research and teaching support, aimed at enhancing and promoting the Living Archive Floating Islands project, conceived by Eugenio Barba, which will be installed at the Bernardini Library in Lecce, Italy.
A vital element of the partnership is the donation by Eugenio Barba to the Polo Biblio-Museale of the Regione Puglia of his personal library as well as of the bibliographic and documentary collections relating to his artistic experience with Odin Teatret.
These documentary materials constitute a heritage of enormous cultural value as well as the testimony of one of the most significant artistic and theatrical events of the twentieth century that is still alive thanks to the vitality of its protagonist Eugenio Barba whose origin and particular inspiration stems from the Salento part of Regione Puglia.
The choice of a different way
The establishment of the Biblio-Museum Poles by Regione Puglia has given us the opportunity to experience a different way of being both a museum and a library in contemporary society.
Thus, alongside the traditional function of the preservation of knowledge, museums and libraries have turned into experimentation places implementing the establishment of a community. The decision to host at the Bernardini Library the testimonies of twentieth century cultural and artistic history protagonists born in this region is part of this experimental process.
We shared with Eugenio Barba the decision to call Living Archive Floating Islands the space that will house the material concerning his artistic biography, Odin Teatret and the Third Theatre.
We are both aware that this definition does not connote an institution but a practice: that of working on an individual and collective memory to induce visions beyond the “dictatorship of the present”.
This is the purpose of the living archives: to offer the option of thinking about oneself in a future that is different from the self-destructive one that the present economic system has devised for the world.
Gigi de Luca (director of Polo Biblio museale, Regione Puglia)
Living Archive Floating Islands is organised into three areas:
1. Memory as cognitive heritage
Archive of historical documentation on Eugenio Barba, Odin Teatret, theatre as a laboratory and barter, the International School of Theatre Anthropology/New Generation (ISTA/NG), the Eurasian Theatre, The Magdalena Project (network of women in theatre) and on the parallel culture of the Third Theatre (theatre groups). It also includes Eugenio Barba's personal library. Available to scholars, students and interested people.
2. Transmission as sharing
Processing and development of documents and other material in the Living Archive. It is a project of professional training and dissemination of knowledge through courses, collaborations with the itinerant centres of the Fondazione Barba Varley, other institutions and universities and sessions of the International School of Theatre Anthropology/New Generation (ISTA/NG). It also includes the publication of books and the “JTA - Journal of Theatre Anthropology” with free digital access as well as the realization of didacticl films on theatre anthropology and actor/dancer techniques. This phase of enhancement of the historical memory implies the growth of a catalyst-environment of specialists (Living Archive) in connection with an international network of artists, scholars and younger generations of cultural activists.
3. Transformation as a creative act
Metamorphosis of documents and objects from the Living Archive into an artistic visual/auditory language. The materials kept in the Living Archive together with elements such as sets, props and costumes from Odin Teatret’s performances find new life through installations and art exhibitions. With the title FLOATING ISLANDS, an interactive and participatory path in the "memory" is created, enabling the visitor to experience in various ways the history, travels, techniques and artistic objectives of Eugenio Barba, the Odin Teatret actors and the groups of the Third Theatre which contributed to changing the culture of theatre after 1968.
Activities
Almost sixty years after 1974, when a group of actors led by the director Eugenio Barba came to Salento to give life to the singular experience of a theatre “barter”, Odin Teatret’s and Eugenio Barba’s history meets Puglia again.
Eugenio Barba’s decision to donate a copy of Odin Teatret’s archive and his personal archive, including his library of around 6000 volumes, to the Puglia Region was decisive. From this decision the LAFLIS – Living Archive Floating Islands project took shape, a project on which the Puglia Region and the Fondazione Barba Varley have been working synergistically for more than two years. To present the archive to the public, three days of sharing and study on Odin Teatret’s experience and on the LAFLIS project will be held from 4 to 6 October 2023, with a busy program of exhibitions, installations, books, films and performances. A large group of journalists, scholars and different kind of witnesses of Odin Teatret’s extraordinary theatre and human experience will meet in Lecce to participate in the initiative entitled: “NOW IS TIME” – Three days of celebrations dedicated to Odin Teatret’s experience. The initiative will take place at the locations of the Polo Biblio-museale of Lecce (Bernardini Library and Castromediano Museum) and at the Cantieri Teatrali Koreja. We therefore extend our warmest invitation to you to participate in this important moment for the city of Lecce, for Puglia and for international theatre and art culture.
