Autopenetration. Eugenio Barba at the Virreina Centre de la Imatge.

Eugenio Barba (Bríndisi, 1936) founded the Odin Teatret and champions the «Third Theatre», which emerged in the 1970s on the outskirts of major capitals in Europe and Latin America. This movement, apart from institutions and avant-gardes, focused on the search for its own roots. Its hallmark is collective creation and non-hierarchical work organization.

The playwright and theater researcher Eugenio Barba and his company, Odin Teatret, share with modernity the eagerness to delve into the depths and, at the same time, explore what is distant. For the Nordic company, both the interiorities of the body and remote cultures are privileged territories for self-exploration.

Between the founding of the company in 1964 and the creation of the International School of Theatre Anthropology in 1979, Barba highlighted, through the manifesto of the «Third Theatre», the hundreds of groups that, during the 1970s, operated on the outskirts of major capitals. These are groups that work outside the  first theater, represented in theater institutions, and the second, championed by avant-gardes. The foundation of third theater companies is the search for their own roots; its hallmark being collective creation and non-hierarchical division of labor.

Although Odin Teatret is still active, the exhibition covers the period between 1971 and 1979, years in which it consolidated dissident forms that began with what Barba called «collective self-penetration» and ended up taking to the streets of Europe and Latin America.

Co-produced with Polo Biblio-Museale di Puglia.

It can be visited free of charge from Tuesday to Sunday and holidays from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.