Creativity, Education and the Arts

Series editorAnne Harris

School of EducationRoyal Melbourne Institute of Technology

Melbourne, Australia

This series emerges out of recent rapid advances in creativity- and arts-informed research in education that seeks to reposition creativity studies within (and in conversation with) education as a multi- and interdisciplin-ary field.

This series takes as its starting point the interrelationship between arts-based research and a growing neuroscientific, cultural and economic dis-course of creativity and creative industries, and the need for education to play a larger role in these expanding discourses. It also takes as a priori an invitation to creativity scholars to move more robustly into theorizing the work of arts- and creativity-based research work, bridging a historical gap between ‘science’ and ‘art’, between ‘theoretical’ and ‘applied’ approaches to research, and between qualitative and quantitative research paradigms.

The following are the primary aims of the series:

• To publish creativity research and theory in relation to education (including schools, curriculum, policy, higher education, pedagogy, learning and teaching, etc.). To put education at the heart of debates on creativity, re-establish the significance of creativity for learning and teaching and development analyses, and forge links between cre-ativity and education. To publish research that draws on a range of disciplinary and theoretical lenses, strengthening the links between creative and arts education and geographies, anthropology, creative industries, aesthetics and philosophy, history, and cultural studies. To publish creativity research and theory with an international scope that explores and reflects the current expansion of thought and prac-tice about global flows, cultural heritage, and creativity and the arts in education.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14926

Tatiana Chemi

A Theatre Laboratory Approach to Pedagogy

and CreativityOdin Teatret and Group Learning

Creativity, Education and the ArtsISBN 978-3-319-62787-8 ISBN 978-3-319-62788-5 (eBook)https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62788-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017953875

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-tional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Eugenio Barba instructing Carolina Pizarro for the performance ‘The Tree’, photo by Frida Gregersen

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer NatureThe registered company is Springer International Publishing AGThe registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Tatiana ChemiDepartment of Learning and PhilosophyAalborg UniversityAalborg, Denmark

I would go crazy if I couldn’t be an artistRosa Antuña

I stand in awe of the actor’s task, breathing the semblance of lifeinto a writer’s character. It is a responsibility that no one system

or method can scientifically explain or precisely account for;certainly the art of acting cannot be summarized by a set of rules

Foster Hirsch (1984, pp. 12–13)

I always kept up a conversation with my fatherEugenio Barba (2010, p. 5)

vii

Teaching how To Learn and Learning by Teaching

I have only done again in my own way what I have learned. I have not forgotten some of the officers from the military college in Naples where I studied and their different ways of treating the young undisciplined and conceited cadets; a metal worker, Eigil Winnje, taught me in his workshop in Oslo how the force of example and the pride in a job well done united a group of artisans; Jerzy Grotowski, in Opole, Poland, revealed to me that theatre is not just a well-made show.

When I was 20, in the Gulf of Biscay, I learned in a few hours that one can go beyond one’s own limits. I had just embarked as a sailor on a Norwegian cargo ship, when we met a storm. The waves shook the floor under my feet. I started to vomit, the sea sickness was unbearable. Worn-out, I left the engine room and sought refuge in my berth. Suddenly it seemed that a mighty wave had thrown me up in the air. It was the officer on watch, a giant with a gentle face, who had lifted me up and was saying quietly: “Do you think you are on a cruise? Get back to work.” There, on my knees, rolling and getting up again to the rhythm of the swell, for hours I cleaned the greasy metal floor of the engine room, also washing away the traces of my vomit.

It was my actors who taught me to be a director. On their own bodies and thanks to their inadequacies and difficulties, their tenacity and the variety of solutions they discovered, I learned the practical skill of theatre craft with its arcane knowledge and Pindaric flights. The rhythm of growth

Foreword: The LaboraTory insTincT

viii FOREWORD: THE LABORATORy INSTINCT

was different for every actor, as was the type of relationship I had with each of them. There was no one method that fitted all.

For my actors, behind my rigour, I felt a special mixture of love: grati-tude and tenderness. Therefore, I struggled to avoid their leaving me. I frequently had to change my habits, our group dynamics, the organisa-tional and operational structure of the theatre in order to accommodate their personal needs and artistic individualisms. These changes produced in all of us uncertainty and excitement, like a new beginning that revital-ised the repetitiveness of our work. These “earthquakes,” these efforts to erase the routine of our micro-culture, are one of the factors behind Odin Teatret’s longevity. Even after they developed their wings, a core of actors remained; others, who flew towards different horizons, have felt the need to return to the “laboratory” we built together.

If theatre is a floating island, it is the companions I have chosen, whom I have formed and who have formed me, that have determined its duration and its way of floating. Ultimately, it is a question of bonds of affection. Can this special mixture of love be a method to be taught?

The ciTy oF The TheaTre

Each generation steps into theatre as if entering a city that others have built: neighbourhoods, suburbs, pedestrian precincts and one-way streets, traffic regulations, parking and no parking zones, buildings, monuments and parks.

Within this urban environment there are rules, conventions, ways of behaving and shortcuts that enable newcomers to get their bearings and to live. The city of the theatre has a material culture of its own, a dense net of operational, economic and technical pathways. These pathways deter-mine how the newcomers inhabit the city: with indifference or passion, with a feeling of exclusion, living quietly at its edges, collaborating with it, rebelling against it, improving it, refusing it or trying to rebuild it from scratch.

These pathways are methods. Literally, they are roads that lead elsewhere. The methods are many and different. In the city of the theatre there are roads that are dishonoured and overcrowded, and honest, dull streets; new avenues about which people as yet have no opinion, and old narrow streets which are like rich heiresses that we might marry, unaware that they may be murderesses. There are streets that are always tidy, aristo-cratic boulevards, working class lanes and busy alleys of artisans. These

ix FOREWORD: THE LABORATORy INSTINCT

roads—these methods—always originate in a milieu, which conditions the way of thinking and acting of those who follow them. There are streets of ill repute where we are forced to live, and streets where we dream of making our home.

How can one orient oneself in the urbanism of the theatre that is the result of distant histories, which do not belong to us? How can we trans-form it into an urbanism, which belongs to our history and our deepest needs?

Only at the end of our life can we know if we have followed the correct path—the unique method that belongs only to us. Then we will be able to reflect on the house we built, whether it is a theatre made of bricks and mortar whose empty hull will remain after our death, or whether it is a living environment with women and men with a unique profile, whose particular vital élan will be extinguished with their disappearance.

In this urbanism—which we can accept, fight or ignore—there exists a value that cannot be explained in words. It surfaces silently at the end of our life when observing why, where and how we used the theatrical crafts-manship for years and years in a succession of changes animated by the same stubbornness and coherence. When we set out, many considered we were heading into a cul-de-sac. It is still so today. But for some people, it has the appeal of a main road.

This is what happened in 1964 when four young Norwegians, rejected by the theatre school in Oslo, gathered around an Italian emigrant who wanted to be a director. We didn’t found Odin Teatret to oppose the exist-ing tradition and its formal actors’ training, but because we didn’t succeed in being admitted to it. We had no original ideas or experimental ambi-tions. We were certainly not revolutionaries. We only wanted to make theatre at whatever cost, and we were ready to pay out of our own pockets. Theatre was our raft. With our backs to the wall, we had the temerity—or impertinence—to make our own way. We called it “laboratory.” It was the temerity of a moment, which became permanent. I would say that it turned into an instinct. Can the instinct for temerity be transmitted?

burning bodies

The theatre’s topography was simple at the beginning of the 60s: on the one side, theatre buildings whose architecture and actor–spectator rela-tionship had not changed for centuries; on the other, authors’ texts inter-preted by actors trained in drama schools.

x FOREWORD: THE LABORATORy INSTINCT

Now that we have succeeded, many people appreciate the road we found. They judge the results and forget the beginnings. Those young people with no experience and their director with no roof over his head, possessed neither originality nor talent—perhaps just a good dose of chutzpah, conceit and arrogance—when they began to prepare themselves to do theatre only through a variety of physical activities. How could a future actor make use of this blend of classical ballet, acrobatics, yoga posi-tions and “plastic” exercises from the then unknown Grotowski theatre, risky “duels” with sticks that we had invented and études inspired by Stanislavski: pouring and drinking a cup of tea with no cup and no teapot? People—including myself—were perplexed and asked how it was possible to become sensitive interpreters of Sophocles or Chekhov by repeating these exercises for hours on end, segmenting them into phases and with different rhythms.

I imposed absolute discipline and silence. yet every actor was a leader, responsible for guiding his or her companions in one of these activities. We were all at the same level of insecurity, naivety and lack of practice. We had decided to learn by ourselves and already aspired to teach, claiming that our theatre of beginners was a “laboratory.”

Our auto-didacticism took the form of a dialogue with distant or dead masters. After a few years it became clear that the silent, endless exercises were a way of thinking with the whole body, washing away the utilitarian reflexes from our mind and fighting the movements and clichés of our private “spontaneity.” For the actors, training was the runway from which they took flight, borne by their own inner wind.

For me it was important to discover that training is not confined to a variety of exercises. This can work for a while. Then it turns into a creative wandering for the actor, a personal bricolage accompanied by surprise and ability to make a living organism grow. In the beginning it may be a simple organism: a brief scene. Then this organism becomes more and more complex with relationships, objects, texts, songs that the actor individually structures as work demonstrations, performances, pedagogic initiatives and artistic projects.

At Odin Teatret training has been a way of becoming integrated into the specific culture of the group, with its history of actors from different countries without a common language among themselves or with their spectators. But training has also been a time for freedom for the individual actors and has accompanied them over the years, independently of the theatre’s productive priorities and the director’s interests.

xi FOREWORD: THE LABORATORy INSTINCT

I noticed how this increasingly personal working path made the actors “take off.” I watched their bodies become transfigured during the rehears-als and the performances, illuminating dark corners of my life and my obsessions. One of these obsessions derived from my condition as an emi-grant: how to live without sullying one’s own dignity and that of others. Another of my obsessions was history, the geography, which surrounds us, where we find Guernica and Auschwitz, Hiroshima and Aleppo, discrimi-nation and abuse of the weak.

At the end of the 60s, my eyes were not only focused on the transfor-mation of my actors. Rehearsing the performance Ferai, I thought about the body in flames of Jan Palach, the Czech university student, who in a corner of Wenceslav Square in Prague had set fire to himself in opposition to the Soviet invasion and the “demoralization” of his fellow citizens. “Messages sent from the stake,” wrote Artaud speaking of actors. This is the ambition of theatre people and the merciless reality of history. To burn: is this a way to oppose and maintain one’s own dignity in theatre and in one’s own epoch? Is this an instinct that can be transmitted?

TraveLLing Far

Every theatre group that is formed by the encounter of motivated peo-ple, secretes a poison: the unintentional repetition of its own knowledge and experiences. It is one of the causes of its disbanding after only a few years.

Learning to learn – to discover that which we have never seen by follow-ing apparently useless, arid paths: long superfluous deviations, the alterna-tion of frantic activity and stalemate, an excess of energy wasted in simple or childish tasks, going against nature by accepting that it is the problem that counts, not the solution. As a director, this has been my antidote against the poison that exhausts a theatre group.

The knowledge accumulated becomes a fortress that allows us to face sieges and adversity. It is also a prison from which we cannot escape. What we know precedes our decisions. Then we use all our strength to knot sheets, to plait a rope to throw out of the window at night in an attempt to run away from the castle in which our experience has confined us.

Learning to unlearn: it is the pleasure of old age. We travel not to change place, but to change our way of thinking and seeing. We only go far when we do not know where we are going. Can this not-knowing be taught?

xii FOREWORD: THE LABORATORy INSTINCT

erasing

I like to make a performance grow like a landscape inhabited by serious and burlesque ghosts who have experienced extreme passions and death. I like to set in motion a process, which engenders a wild growth, accumula-tion, profusion of contrasting elements, excrescences, detours, paths that disappear into the undergrowth. The result is a living landscape that speaks with discordant voices and whose genesis is in the biography, the imagina-tion and the know-how of my actors. Then I like to erase it. I devise the most intricate subterfuges to provoke a storm, which, wave after wave, dismantles the landscape and makes me see its ghosts, carriers of personal messages for a few spectators, myself included. During the rehearsals, at the height of the storm, I perceive their apparition. Then I feel an intense happiness just as when, suddenly, one becomes aware of being in love.

Beyond their literal, metaphoric or arcane meaning, the details—like the words—have an aesthetic physicality, a seductive power, a voluptuous nature. The ghosts who inhabit the Odin performances are made of the substance of the details, tiny dynamisms, suggestions, transitions, breaks, silences, unusual inflections, elusive cadences, sudden accelerations. The performances are born from an indecipherable centripetal vitality that embraces and heals the shattered landscape, which the actors and I culti-vate with so much care and for so long. Each new performance advances cautiously reacting to the previous one. A feud between brothers and sis-ters. The same blood, the same genealogy, an endless clash between Eteocles and Polynices, Antigone and Ismene. There are always certain themes that return. Like ghosts. Not by chance, Ibsen’s Ghosts in Norwegian is called Gjengangere —those who return. Like in French, Les Revenants.

All this is know-how imbued with personal superstitions. The deep sense of the choice to make theatre is different for each of us. It is also incommunicable. This incommunicability decides our visions, the techni-cal procedures, the relationships, the way of directing a theatre, the grati-fications and the aesthetic categories. Our zigzagging daily practice consolidates the mutual respect for this incommunicability. Can incom-municability be taught?

LaboraTory

Since its creation in 1964, Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium/Odin Teatret has developed three fields of action: artistic, pedagogic and research. These different activities were developed within separate areas of our laboratory,

xiii FOREWORD: THE LABORATORy INSTINCT

each with a specific designation: performances and courses under the name of Odin Teatret, ISTA—International School of Theatre Anthropology, University of Eurasian Theatre, Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies, Odin Teatret Archives, Odin Teatret Film and Odin Teatret Publishing House. It goes without saying that their undertakings have constantly interacted.

Within these fields of action, further projects and initiatives unfolded—studies on gender in the Magdalena Project, the Transit Festival and the journal The Open Page—conferences, publications on the transmission of incorporated techniques and “tacit knowledge,” intercultural laboratories of actors’ practice and, above all, a range of activities in the community among which the Festuge, the Holstebro Festive Week, is worthy of note. These are activities in which artistic creation, didactics and social aware-ness mingle with research. This fertile and intermediary zone corresponds to what, in the natural sciences, is called applied research.

In theatre, pure research corresponds to the pursuit of basic principles. One approach consists in going back to the origins, scrutinising deeply the first days of apprenticeship, and comparing and practically analysing their different paths. This procedure is accompanied by naive questions that force us to look again at our own knowledge from another angle.

Both pure research and applied research imply the growth of a milieu, which enables us to test the effectiveness of the tools used in our practice. The milieu of artists and scholars that has grown up around our laboratory shares a common curiosity and commitment. The combination of theory and history, of practice and creative reflection, is essential for the develop-ment of a theatre culture, and it belongs to the methodological baggage of that pragmatic science—as Jerzy Grotowski called it—which can be applied in our work.

I could describe in this way the various activities that our laboratory has carried out with the same nucleus of actors for over 50 years. The words correspond to the facts. yet, when I read them, I feel uneasy. They are like a map that points out a road that does not yet exist and where the results seem to be guaranteed even before we have set out. Even worse, it sounds like a prescription. But theatre is not medicine, theatre is not abstraction, nor is it metaphor or poetry. Theatre is a technique to make us see Life. Actors and spectators alike must see it with the eyes of their senses and of their memory.

My craft reminds me of the work of the artisan in Ceylon, long ago, who painted the eyes of the statues of Buddha to be placed in the temples. It was the last detail to be completed. The eyes were the spark that turned

xiv FOREWORD: THE LABORATORy INSTINCT

the statue into an ardent sacred object. They had to be painted when the night turned pale: Prince Gautama had attained enlightenment and become Buddha at five o’clock in the morning. The artisan, in sumptuous cloths, adorned with jewels and with a sword in his belt, observed the monstrous face of the statue without eyes, without existence or inner light. It was his task to infuse it with Presence, Life and Truth.

He climbed up a ladder in front of the statue, followed by an assistant who carried the brushes, the paints and a mirror of metal. The artisan dipped a brush in the paint while turning his back to the statue as though to shun it. The assistant, a step below, held up the mirror. The artisan lifted the brush above his left shoulder and painted one eye, then the other. He never looked directly at the face, but was guided by the reflec-tion in the mirror. Only the mirror received the direct image of Buddha’s gaze in the process of being created. No human eyes should meet the gaze of Buddha at the very moment of attaining enlightenment and seeing. The task could take several hours or one minute. At times months or years.

I imagine my actors as artisans painting eyes on the figures of theatrical fiction. They infuse them with sacredness, dignity, beauty, some of the sublime qualities of life. I observe them while they are painting, concen-trating on the mirror that I set before them and which shows only a part of the blind, featureless face of a ghost who comes from far away—a char-acter. It has taken them half a century to embody this know-how—or temerity—and they have endowed this task with a deep meaning, different for each of them, one that links us profoundly and which we share with a handful of the “happy few.”

This has been my laboratory: painting eyes so I may see and make others see. Avid to capture the secrets of the painters of eyes.

I don’t know where this instinct comes from that pushes me to act thus, just as the instinct that pushes my actors to follow me remains a mystery for me. Is this the sanctity of fiction? Can these instincts be handed down?

Time has diluted frontiers, categories, certainties in my senses and in my brain. I find myself in a landscape, in which I still like to bend down to look for traces that have escaped my interests and needs. I have explored this landscape for more than half a century, and time has covered it with fine sand. Surrounded by my actors during the rehearsals for a new perfor-mance—the only true laboratory—I recognise under my feet the land-scape covered by the sand: an endless desert. Sometimes from a hidden crack a sudden wind unfurls, lifting the sand and blinding me. I see red: the actors’ inner fire transforms the sand, erases and reshapes it into glass.

xv FOREWORD: THE LABORATORy INSTINCT

Through its transparency, in a whirlwind of fiction, I see the dance of oppo-sites. It is Life rocking me in its arms.

Holstebro, Denmark Eugenio Barba

Acceptance speech on the occasion of the Honorary Doctorate bestowed on Eugenio Barba by the Janacek Academy of Music and Performing Arts, 12 May 2017, Brno (Czech Republic). Translated from Italian by Judy Barba.

xvii

inTroducTion by anne M harris

I’m thrilled to welcome Tatiana Chemi’s new book A Theatre Laboratory Approach to Pedagogy and Creativity: Odin Teatret and Group Learningto the Creativity, Education and the Arts book series here at Palgrave Macmillan. Through Chemi’s original perspective on theatre laboratory, including its history and contemporary social functions and evolution, she explores the specific conditions and practices characteristic of a theatre lab—in this case Odin Teatret and its charismatic founder and leader, Eugenio Barba—which build upon aspects of the Renaissance studio, as well as collaborative devising groups in a range of contexts who share val-ues and practice strategies. Core to these collaborative groups or labs is a shared set of values and a shared commitment to the work as pedagogy or teaching and learning practices. Chemi beautifully profiles Odin Teatret as an example of this tradition of the ‘theatre laboratory’, and its concomi-tant laboratorial practices, as well as exploring the pedagogical value of theatre laboratories more generally, and extending the scholarship here into group learning, group creativity and leadership skills.

In the book Chemi also expertly traces the ways in which actors per-form a pedagogical and critical educational function, drawing specifically on the actors of Odin Teatret, their understanding of learning and of their own role as educators, offering insights for actors and theatre lab practitio-ners more generally, leading to Chemi’s articulation of a ‘theatre labora-tory learning theory’. She also uses student/actor personal narratives from the theatre ensemble to explore the very nature of creative ‘learning to

series ediTor’s inTroducTion: TaTiana cheMi

xviii SERIES EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: TATIANA CHEMI

learn’. Using an autoethnographic lens, the author draws on her own experiences with Odin Teatret alongside these other narratives in order to draw readers into an understanding of the power of creative engagement as embodied learning within and as part of the group.

I’m proud to include this book in the series, and to commend it to readers as a powerful extension of the field of creativity in education, through the particular focus on a world-class theatre ensemble and its profound and creative lessons for education overall.

Associate Professor Anne M Harris

RMIT University, Melbourne AustraliaJune 2017

xix

Learning happens everywhere. People learn all the time whether they wish it or not, whether they plan it or not. Customers learn about the cost of living any time they purchase their goods at the grocery store; artists learn about the laws of physics any time they attempt to build their works against their limits; scientists learn about the beauty of mathematical abstractions any time they embark upon complex tasks; children learn about funda-mental human relationships any time they engage in play and make-believe. Any teacher or educator knows that learning cannot be prevented or even constricted within the walls of schools. On the other end, what do schools or educational institutions have to do with this plain fact?

How can schools or educational institutions guarantee that learning will happen within their frames? How can educators ensure the pledge of novel and relevant learning within their institutional frames?

Expert learning theorists explain the gap of learning, the needs for the unknown future and the solutions that can be adopted. These voices are authoritative and worth listening to. Usually. Unless different perspectives are needed.

ProLogue

xxi

My first encounter with Odin Teatret is the story of a missed opportunity.When in 1992 the internationally acknowledged theatre group Odin

Teatret visited my hometown of Naples, Italy, I was attending my univer-sity studies in Literature and Drama, and I had learned all about the groundbreaking contribution to contemporary performing arts for which Odin Teatret was known. My books on theatre history began with the ancient Greeks and ended with Barba and his group. I was brought up in the historical awareness of a genealogy of theatre innovators and its rele-vance to contemporary culture and society: a family of practices and theo-ries in which Odin Teatret participated with an outstanding and central role.

This knowledge emerged in the development of my cultural mind by means of formal trajectories as well as informal paths. At the time I joined the University of Naples, one of the oldest, most prestigious universities in Italy, founded in 1224 by Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, King of Sicily and Holy Roman Emperor, who also gave his name to the institution, I was headhunted to join a research group, which I later discovered to be a strik-ing learning environment. The professor who held the chair of theatre studies was the late Franco Carmelo Greco, international expert on Commedia dell’Arte and especially of its Pulcinella mask (Greco 1988, 1990). He was keen to single out potential collaborators for his many and ambitious projects and was incredibly skilled in establishing productive learning teams. His academic practice offered to the students he selected real-life challenges in an apprenticeship setting. We, the students that had the informal but active role of his collaborators, helped in arranging large

PreFace: My own odin hisTory

xxii PREFACE: My OWN ODIN HISTORy

conferences, planning courses, teaching and holding exams, co-writing and editing prestigious books, cataloguing archive materials. In 1987, the chair of theatre studies was denominated Letteratura teatrale italiana, which can be loosely translated as Italian drama. This title indicated the study of exclusively written texts and a geographical limit within Italian matters. As exciting and relevant as it is to engage in the exegesis and analysis of ancient and contemporary texts that are written for theatre, Greco and his team were well aware that performance is a different matter. Theatre as performing art is a complex phenomenon, where texts have a central but delimited role—if they happen to have a role at all, depending on the performing tradition at hand. In the course of my university stud-ies, Greco managed to set up a new chair as a supplement to drama: mod-ern and contemporary theatre history. This was greatly welcomed by the team of collaborators, not because this meant completely restructuring our work, but because this would allow us to do what we were doing beforehand anyway. Professor Greco, indeed, as the visionary he was, did not limit his and our interests to drama, to the written texts or even to Italy, but explored and encouraged us to investigate all aspects of perform-ing arts, across genres, methodological approaches, geographical areas and historical periods. The new chair was an opportunity to make visible and strategically accepted a clear statement on theatre: the fact that aca-demic work should contemplate theatre as bodies, relationships, spaces, performances and everything in between.

In this journey, Greco familiarised his students both with ancient prac-tices, such as mask theatre, and with contemporary theories: Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Artaud, Brook, Grotowski and Barba, to mention only a few. These theories were pulsating practices that we would experience in the city’s many performing stages and in informal learning encounters that Greco would arrange, such as the ongoing collaboration with Dario Fo. As part of one of these experiential opportunities, I happened to know that the (for us theatre students) mythical Odin Teatret was in town. They were going to perform Talabot (first performed in August 1988), and Greco, our great cultural inspirer, arranged for his students to get special discounts. When the evening of the performance came, I was enthusiastic, but this meeting was not meant to be. Because of a misunderstanding with the organisers, my fellow students and I found out that the tickets had been sold. My disappointment was colossal. For many years to come, I would not concern myself with Odin Teatret.

xxiii PREFACE: My OWN ODIN HISTORy

The fascination, however, stayed with me, and my distant dialogue with the ensemble continued, only it was essentially at theoretical or abstract level, by means of readings and conceptualisations or by experiencing the-atrical practices related to the same performative traditions.

Suddenly, a new opportunity emerged in 1996, when Odin Teatret was offering a full seminar with training, teaching and performances. Unfortunately, even that time I missed my opportunity, because I received the information too late. But when, the year after, the same long seminar was announced, my persistence made my curiosity even stronger. I determined at all costs I would be accepted as a participant. All the odds were playing in favour of this meeting. Scilla, Italy, the place where the seminar was going to be held, is the place where all my ancestors come from, the place where I belong and have my roots. It would be easily accessible in terms of lodging and living expenses. All the odds were in my favour except time: the event was about to take place in a short time after I had read the advertisement. As soon as I saw the dates of the event, I took the train and travelled to Scilla. The organiser was Teatro Proskenion, whose leader at that time was anthro-pologist and theatre expert Claudio La Camera. On arrival in town, I imme-diately engaged my family in search of the theatre group. One of the benefits of small towns is that, whenever something is happening, everybody knows. I was directed to the sacristy, where the event would apparently take place. When I entered the large room, Odin actor Kai Bredholt was fixing the stage lights to the ceiling together with the technician. From high on his ladder he welcomed me with a large Viking smile and kind words. I was informed that, in order to discuss my participation in the event, I should go to see Claudio La Camera in a different location. I found Claudio, amongst organisers and participants, intent on busy preparations. Hearing my request, he looked sceptical and said there was no possibility of participation: the event was fully booked and they were not accepting any more participants. I told him the story of my missed encounters and my passion. I told him of my persever-ance and of my firm determination not to leave. He still looked sceptical, but he saw in my face that my intention was set and, being a stubborn Calabrian like me, he probably knew that on no account was I going to change my mind. Finally, he gave me permission to join the event. Throughout the seminar, I had the feeling that he both hated me because of the logistic inconvenience I was adding to already challenging event management, but also that he respected and appreciated my brave stubbornness. We became eventually friends and collaborated on several projects.

xxiv PREFACE: My OWN ODIN HISTORy

My first encounter with Odin Teatret was finally about to take place. I took the seminar work seriously, and I worked hard and focused through-out my first University of Eurasian Theatre (UTE), which will be further developed in Chap. 6. However, what was most challenging was to keep all my emotions on a leash. The very first image of the actual event I recall is the row of scholars that Barba had collected for the event. They were all sitting in a semicircle facing us, the participants. They were the finest experts of modern and contemporary theatre, and I had read most of their scholarly work and used it for my graduate studies, and afterwards for my PhD research. This was before Google and before one could easily find photo portraits, biographies or personal blogs of one’s favourite people. It was the first time I could put a face to Claudio Meldolesi, Nicola Savarese, Clelia Falletti, Mirella Schino, Ferdinando Taviani. I saw some others I had previously met at conferences, and it was a joyful reunion. At last, their names could be associated to more than a book cover. Then the host-ing wizard, Eugenio Barba, initiated the learning alchemy, and voices and ideas and dialogues followed the faces.

During the week-long seminar I learned in depth what I had memo-rised in the course of my studies. I finally understood what it all really meant. Profound understanding emerged side by side with the develop-ment of identity, or better the transformation of identity. The student became a researcher. Describing my first encounter with Odin Teatret as a transformative experience is nothing but ontological evidence. There is no rhetoric or retrospective glorification of events in defining this experience as transformative, just a real phenomenon that changed forever a personal experience. This was also the occasion in which I experienced theatre as transformative from the perspective of audience.

Performances are an integrated part of Odin Teatret’s enquiry and ped-agogical approach. No matter of what kind—performances, barters, work demonstrations, site-specific events—these dramaturgical forms carry the fundamental dilemmas or topics of the ensemble’s theatrical research. They are research in action. Therefore, any study of Odin Teatret’s research processes or pedagogical and learning strategies cannot ignore the close connection between performances and educational activities, or the central role the expressive and performative artefacts hold in the ensemble’s work.

The first performance of Odin Teatret I attended was in this occasion, in 1997: Itsi-Bitsi (first performed 1991). The story of this experience is also told in Christoffersen and Chemi (in press). When I finally sat down

xxv PREFACE: My OWN ODIN HISTORy

on a chair and waited for the performance Itsi-Bitsi to start, I thought that I was prepared to see what was familiar to me already. I had by now read and heard a great deal about the ideas of the Odin Teatret actors and director, the theatre group’s history and performative approach. However, the performance’s reality hit me like a tsunami. Instead of a cold, analytical theatre researcher, there sat a young woman who wept and laughed and rethought the world. To this day, the same experience is repeated over and over again whenever I see an Odin Teatret performance.

I have researched and immersed myself in this theatre group and the-atre form for over 25 years and believe I have acquired the capacity to handle the emotional and cognitive challenges arising from these perfor-mances. Nevertheless, all these experiences turn out to be unique. Each time, a picture, an association or a specific dramaturgical solution surprises the researcher-spectator, and her analysis is troubled. Opinions form in poetic paths and emotions flow. As a spectator, every encounter with Odin Teatret is a journey, with its questions, mental images and memories. My journey with Odin Teatret has been and is a lifelong learning process that generates insights about the world, about culture, about theatre, but also raises exciting new questions, initiates new knowledge needs and expands intellectual horizons. This book witnesses my very personal learning jour-ney within the Odin Teatret tradition as theatre laboratory.

This book is about learning. Learning in a theatre laboratory. It began against the background of acknowledgement of a fundamental problem: the educational gap between practices in educational institutions and the challenges of (and for) the unknown future. In other words, as educators, we conceive, design and carry out educational programmes of which we cannot foresee the relevance for the students’ future. Technological devel-opment, together with social and cultural change, contributes to acceler-ating the human ability to react to challenges and act upon decisions. Being biologically as well as culturally disposed to meet complex chal-lenges, human beings behave nowadays as they always did, in order to guarantee their own and their species’ survival. This happens today with the intensified challenges of constant speed and multiplied complexity in the environments we have to deal with as human beings. Learning, more critically than ever, is a fundamental requirement to human beings that need to act/react to complex challenges. Educational institutions acknowl-edge these specific necessities of our societies but, surprisingly, often choose to think about education in conservative terms. Strategies and understandings based on offering “more of the same” are steering the

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future of education. With the present book, I wish to explore different inspirational sources for education. What if, instead of exclusively looking at learning theories and practices, we should turn our attention to cre-ative, artistic practices that deal with pedagogical methods and models? What if educators should turn to alternative learning environments, whose main purpose is to create, to investigate, to establish relationships and to challenge assumptions? What if the gap between science and art would be overcome in a joint effort to rethink education?

These considerations are not completely new to the cross-disciplinary field of education and the arts. Fleming (2012) briefly—but effectively—sums up the contributions that touch upon the topics of drama and educa-tion, a field in which he defines learning through drama, “both as a subject in itself and across the curriculum” (p. 69). The contributions that Fleming mentions define this field differently as development through drama (Way 1998), learning through drama (McGregor et al. 1977), drama as educa-tion (Bolton 1984), learning through imagined experience (Neelands 1992), drama for learning (Heathcote and Bolton 1994). To these defini-tions I wish to add the following: theatre in education (Jackson 2002), science theatre (Chemi and Kastberg 2015) and applied theatre (Bundy and O’Toole 2013). All these bridging initiatives look at commonalities and interactions between the two fields of drama/theatre/performance and education. Similarly, the idea that drama, theatre and performance can inspire, influence or concretely support and widen the scope of education is at the core of the present contribution. The global perspective of these studies will be discussed here in the conclusive chapter, where it will lay the ground for future directions for theatre laboratory studies.

This book is about exploring these possibilities or opportunities. The artistic environment I have chosen as research platform is theatre labora-tory. Not unpredictably, theatre laboratory contains the very core, both of a learning environment and of a creative community. My intention was to look closely at the tradition of theatre laboratory and at the practices of knowledge transmission, peer-learning, educational negotiations that occur while the artists create and learn. In doing so, I envisioned a possible transfer of this knowledge to institutional (formal) learning environments, in order to imagine novel and relevant solutions for the future of education.

The structure of the book is organised in thematic areas that look at theatre laboratory as a learning space, at the actors as learners and edu-cators, at the ensemble’s creative processes (including the director’s

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leadership techniques), at the pupils’ learning processes, at one course participant’s learning process during the specific educational event of the University of Eurasian Theatre.

In Chap. 1 I will provide and discuss a definition for the volatile con-cept of theatre laboratory, outlining an historical framework for this theat-rical phenomenon. Common traits of theatre laboratories will be identified, as well as critical reflections against a cohesive look at theatre laboratory as a consistent form. While acknowledging the diversity of historical pur-poses and practices, some clear commonalities can be found. These might include, for instance, the fact that these spaces are reminiscent of a Renaissance studio, or that the laboratory needs a collaborating group who exchanges knowledge (pedagogy), shares values and is experimental in its approach (research). Odin Teatret will be taken as the main example of the tradition of theatre laboratory, and its laboratorial practices will be described. I will especially elaborate on the concept of mind–body and pre-expressivity. In doing so, I will make use of previously published and revised materials, both translated from Italian and available in the philoso-phy journal Porta di Massa (Chemi 1998, 2000). The original texts have been extended, deconstructed and rethought so much that the chapters of this book constitute brand new interpretations.

Chapter 2 is dedicated to the actor’s learning journey, mapping the individual’s transformation as a learner and as an educator. The actors interviewed give their explanations of the educational designs to be found at Odin Teatret, their understanding of learning and of their own role as educators, and their educational values. To conclude, I will attempt to draft a theatre laboratory learning theory, based on the above.

In Chap. 3 I will look at group learning, group creativity and leadership in a theatre laboratory. Eugenio Barba’s own learning trajectory will be briefly described, going through the milestones that brought him to the-atre laboratory. Specific attention will be given to the role of the audience as co-creator of meaning and learning experiences, in transformative settings.

In Chap. 4 the dialogue will essentially be about engaging the younger generations. Odin Teatret pupils will narrate their transformational experi-ences with their masters. How do they approach the masters? How do they negotiate educational settings and roles, eventually coming to agreements? How do they describe Odin Teatret as laboratory or educa-tional environment?

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As an en-acted example of the above, Chap. 5 will consist of the com-plete text of Carolina Pizarro’s work demonstration. This text (and its performance) bears witness to a lifelong learning journey through the actress’ body and performative experiences. The actress’ dramaturgy unfolds here associatively, contributing to the general topic of pedagogy in a poetic manner.

Chapter 6 describes one participant’s individual experience and the title is “Learning to Learn.” In order to look at this participant’s learning pro-gression, I will look autoethnographically at my own participation in Odin Teatret short seminars and selected sessions of the University of Eurasian Theatre.

Chapter 7 contributes to this book with a specific conversation about creative processes and of the ways in which characters emerge. The con-versation with Roberta Carreri shifts the reader’s attention behind the scenes of theatre laboratory, where the actress is in dialogue with herself and her characters.

Finally, in the concluding chapter (Chap. 8), I will outline some per-spectives on my research findings and envisage possible applications to higher education settings. I will initiate reflections on third spaces, on semiformal learning environments and on critical approaches to education and pedagogy. Rather than solutions or recipes, this book hopes to inspire future studies and investigations, as well as hinting at possible develop-mental directions to be investigated in educational practices.

In addition, the book also offers a number of tools. As well as a com-plete list of references and thematic index, to facilitate the work of readers searching for specific topics, there is a short methodological note on the body of empirical data employed, and short biographies for all the partici-pating artists are supplied.

Some practical information concerns the criteria chosen in order to deliver information that is accurate and also applicable. My aim is to offer interpretations and information that can be helpful in future studies about pedagogical approaches within theatre laboratories in general, and specifi-cally about Odin Teatret as a laboratory and its variety of pedagogical strategies. Therefore, my choices are aimed at transparency and clarity. For instance, I will consistently make references to the specific source that has been consulted, even if this means that some references in text might seem anachronistic. For instance, in quoting Vygotsky’s The Psychology of Art, I will use the 1971 English version that I consulted, instead of reporting on the complex exegesis of the text (date of writing of the different articles, date of publication in Russian, date of first English translation). Many of

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the books consulted here are written, rewritten and published in their original language and then translated in English with or without modifica-tion. Sometimes it was relevant to quote the same volume in different translations, for instance, for the works of Eugenio Barba, because the latest versions offered a conceptual development. In the same way, for ease of reading, the spelling used will consistently be British English, but the original quotes that contain American spelling will be maintained as such. The same criteria are used for spelling of names, for instance, I will spell Constantin Stanislavski as such, but I will leave other spellings if contained in direct quotes (for instance: Stanislavsky). Whenever direct quotes are not referenced, they indicate original empirical data gathered for the pres-ent study. These quotes will be consistently attributed to the artist interviewed.

Concerning the use of gender in pronouns, I am fully aware of the problem of gender discourse in academic texts and the regrettable ten-dency of these texts to exclusively choose the male gender. The group of individuals I am writing about is a mixed-gender community, where women hold a fundamental and central role. I wish to acknowledge this and at the same time make the reader aware that whenever I chose the male gender in order to indicate actors and actresses together, this is made exclusively as the most practical way of indicating a mixed-gender group. However, I will specify anytime I have in mind a particular case involving a specific gender, or anytime I believe it important to emphasise the pres-ence of both genders. This will be both politically correct and provide stylistic variation. Similarly, I use the impersonal plural form, for instance “actors, actresses,” to indicate the actors interviewed in this study. The generalised form is therefore used exclusively for brevity’s sake and not to indicate a quantitative generalisation of the findings of the present study. The research tradition followed here is indeed qualitative, descriptive, interpretive and narrative.

The target group for the present publication is as heterogeneous as its topic, covering both theatre studies and pedagogy. Interested environ-ments might be educational and cultural institutions, theatre groups and theatre institutions that are attentive to learning, research and communi-cation. This interdisciplinary field is considered here as the future for all cultural institutions, as a number of initiatives at policy level shows, such as the international attention to collaborations between schools and cul-tural institutions (Chemi 2014).

This book speaks to experts in theatre, drama, performance and acting, both in academic and non-academic settings. This includes students at a

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number of university programmes, theatre groups interested in education, educational institutions interested in creative learning environments.

More generally, this book addresses all those who are interested in being a creative lifelong learner and are passionate about theatre as means of experimentation, knowledge, development and learning.

My purpose is to dig into Odin Teatret’s pedagogical tradition as the-atre laboratory and harvest insights on learning and teaching practices, which could be applied to institutional educational settings. Looking at Odin Teatret, with its long duration and laboratory practice, could bring a whole new way of thinking about pedagogy, creativity, research and learning to the public debate on culture and education.

reFerences

Barba, E. (2010). On Directing and Dramaturgy. Burning the House. London/New york: Routledge.

Bolton, G. M. (1984). Drama as Education: An Argument for Placing Drama at the Centre of the Curriculum. Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd.

Bundy, P., & O’Toole, J. (Eds.). (2013). Applied Theatre Research. Bristol: Intellect.

Chemi, T. (1998). La verità dell’attore. Porta di Massa. Laboratorio autogestito di filosofia. VERITA’. Napoli: Associazione Porta di Massa, 5(Spring), 47–52.

Chemi, T. (2000). Mente sapendo di mentire: il concetto di mente-corpo nell’Antropologia Teatrale. Porta di Massa. Laboratorio autogestito di filosofia. MENTE. Napoli: Associazione Porta di Massa, 7(Fall), 56–59.

Chemi, T. (2014). The Art of Arts Integration: Theoretical Perspectives and Practical Guidelines. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press.

Chemi, T., & Kastberg, P. (2015). Education Through Theatre: Typologies of Science Theatre. Applied Theatre Research, 3(1), 53–65.

Christoffersen, E. E., & Chemi, T. (in press). Serendipitetens Rum: Odin Teatrets Laboratorium. Aarhus: Klim.

Fleming, M. (2012). The Arts in Education: An Introduction to Aesthetics, Theory and Pedagogy. London: Routledge.

Greco, F. C. (Ed.). (1988). Quante Storie per Pulcinella – Combien D’histoires pour Polichinelle. Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane.

Greco, F.  C. (Ed.). (1990). Pulcinella una Maschera tra gli Specchi. Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane.

Heathcote, D., & Bolton, G. (1994). Drama for Learning. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

Hirsch, F. (1984). A Method to Their Madness: The History of the Actors Studio. Cambridge: Da Capo Press.

xxxi PREFACE: My OWN ODIN HISTORy

Jackson, A. (Ed.). (2002). Learning Through Theatre: New Perspectives on Theatre in Education. London: Routledge.

McGregor, L., Tate, M., & Robinson, K. (1977). Learning Through Drama: Report of the Schools Council Drama Teaching Project (10–16), Goldsmiths’ College, University of London. Heinemann Educational for the Schools Council.

Neelands, J. (1992). Learning Through Imagined Experience. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

Way, B. (1998). Development Through Drama. Prometheus Books.

xxxiii

The present work is in debt, first of all, to three (wise) men: Franco Carmelo Greco, Eugenio Barba and Claudio La Camera. About the late professor Greco, the reader has learned more in the preface of this book; it is plain to see in which ways he has helped me in building a basic knowl-edge of Odin Teatret and in feeding my curiosity about the themes unfolded in the present book. Eugenio Barba is guilty of having shown me a different way of doing theatre, where theatre makes a difference. For this horrible crime I thank him and will always do so. He is my guide and my mentor not only because of face-to-face conversations, but also virtual conversations through ideas, books or performances. Even though he is unaware, Claudio La Camera has been following me in my research since 1997—precisely from the 1st of June at about 9 am, when he allowed me to participate in the extraordinary learning environment he had created. These were the frames for a fundamental dialogue to take place for theatre people and scholars reflecting on the basics of theatre laboratory’s peda-gogy: apprendere ad apprendere, learning to learn, the subterranean theme of the University of Eurasian Theatre (Learning to learn: The transition from action to reflection, Scilla, Italy, 1–8 June 1997). To all the three of them I am indebted, and I hope they will be proud of my work. So much for the fathers behind this work.

Mothers who have inspired, helped or eased my work are many, most of them from Odin Teatret. I am thankful to Odin Teatret actresses Roberta Carreri, Julia Varley and Iben Nagel Rasmussen and also to their characters, the former—the actresses in flesh and bones—for having engaged in a long-term dialogue with me and having helped me understand

acknowLedgeMenTs

xxxiv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

theatre laboratory and pedagogy, the latter—the characters—for the poetry and imagination that they can inspire in me. Talking about moth-ers, I wish to thank my own mum for literally easing my workload at home and for providing an often-forgetful scholar with freshly laundered and ironed bed linen or other similar luxurious but necessary treats.

Odin Teatret must be acknowledged wholesale, for the fun, the sorrow, the love and caring that each one of its members lavishly spread. A special thank goes to all the actors who agreed to be interviewed for the present study and to Erik Exe Christoffersen for having collected the empirical data together with me. The present book is actually one part of a number of contributions that came out of this shared empirical work.

Carolina Pizarro was so kind as to agree to the publication of the text of her brilliant work demonstration, and I acknowledge her for that. Although the text is immediately relevant to the topic of the present vol-ume, it will never compare with the staged version: her stage presence is able to explain far better than any scholarly words can do. The reading of the text cannot in any way substitute the experience of her work demon-stration on stage, an experience that is profound, clever and moving. Many thanks to the Odin pupils who have been kind enough to reply to my questions and let me participate in their work-in-progress: Giulia Varotto, Marilyn Nunes, Pierangelo Pompa, Rosa Antuña.

On the subject of kinfolk, I wish to acknowledge two families: my the-atre family and my blood family. The former is more recent and distrib-uted in time and space: the international network Linea Trasversale has nourished my need for theatre laboratory experiments and is now often present in my life, but (too often) at a distance. The latter is the building block of my scholarly work: a solid and encouraging family environment that my husband and sons are able to create around me, for me and together with me. I love you guys.

Apart from that, the present work has been blessed with positive inter-actions with a number of helpful individuals: my sophisticated language coach Julia Campbell Hamilton, always ready to assist me and discuss lan-guage traps or prospects; writer Diana Gabaldon, wizard of storytelling, for inspiring me to engaging forms of scholarly writing; Graziano D’Orazi for having helped me in understanding the emotional learning experiences at the military school La Nunziatella; my colleagues Julie Borup Jensen and Lone Hersted for allowing me to use unpublished materials of our shared work on artistic creativity; the Odin Teatret Archives for being always ready to assist my research with knowledge and passion, especially

xxxv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Sabrina Martello and Luciana Bazzo for all sorts of practical help and hall-way chats; all my friends, relatives and colleagues who have asked con-stantly about my work and shared my excitement about it; visual artist Karsten Auerbach for allowing me to use details from his paintings in Fig. 2.1; photographer Frida Gregersen for the photos in Figs. 3.4 and 7.1. and on the cover; Rina Skeel for the photo in Fig. 4.4; Enrico Voccia who gave me permission to use here—in translated and revised version—two articles that I had previously authored and published in the journal he is responsible for, Porta di Massa: Laboratorio Autogestito di Filosofia; the participants in the EGOS conference 2016, Sub-theme 09, Transitional Spaces and Practices in Organizations: Questioning the Powers of Art and Design (especially the convenors: Ariane Berthoin Antal, Victor J. Friedman, Philippe Mairesse) for the inspiration I used in the conclud-ing chapter, and I am sure they will recognise a few elements of our great conversations; Allan Owens, Anne Pässilä, Laura Mellanen, Clive Holtham for the inspiration and the fun at the conference Art of Management and Organisation (AoMO) 2016; Steve Taylor for promptly resolving my doubts about spelling choices (Stanislavsky or Stanislavski? Constantin or Konstantin?); Siw Maria Sundroos Heede for assisting with some of the interviews’ transcriptions; my department leader, Annette Lorentsen, for listening to my crazy ideas about higher education and always being ready to support them.

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conTenTs

1 Theatre Laboratory as Space for Learning 1

2 The Actor’s Learning Journey 45

3 Group Learning and Leadership in Theatre Laboratory 83

4 Dialogue with the Younger Generations 129

5 Enacted Learning: Work Demonstration by  Carolina Pizarro 169

6 Learning to Learn 183

7 An Actress and Her Characters: Interview with  Roberta Carreri 203

8 Conclusions and Perspectives: The Place of Possibilities 215

xxxviii CONTENTS

Appendix 1 Background Data 243

Appendix 2 Artists’ Short Biographies 247

Index 257

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Tatiana  Chemi, Ph.D. is Associate Professor at Aalborg University, Chair of Educational Innovation, where she works in the field of artistic learning and creative processes, a field that she specifically focused on dur-ing her postdoctorate research at the Danish School of Education (DPU). She is a graduate in Italian Literature and Theatre, with a Ph.D. in Contemporary Theatre History, and holds a deep interest for aesthetics and artistic practices. She has been a senior researcher at Universe Foundation and researcher at Universe Research Lab; a teaching assistant for the Department of Dramaturgy at the University of Aarhus and lec-turer of History of World Literature and Visual Arts at the Scandinavian Department of the Russian Theatre School GITIS.

She has organised and led several cultural projects, including Linea Trasversale’s international meeting The Multicultural Space (1–9 May 2002) and the Samuel Beckett Centenary in Denmark (November 2006), where she made her debut as a theatre director with the play Come and Go. She has been co-founder and leader of the researchers’ group ARiEL (Arts in Education and Learning).

She is the author of many published articles and reports and is also the author of Artbased Approaches. A Practical Handbook to Creativity at Work, Fokus Forlag, 2006, Kunsten at integrere kunst i undervisning (The art of integrating the arts in education), Aalborg Universitetsforlag, 2012, In the Beginning Was the Pun: Comedy and Humour in Samuel Beckett’s Theatre, Aalborg University Press, 2013 and The Art of Arts Integration, Aalborg University Press, 2014. In 2013, Aalborg University Press named her Author of the year. Her latest work focuses on distributed creativity,

abouT The auThor

xl ABOUT THE AUTHOR

artistic creativity and artistic partnerships published in the following con-tributions: with Jensen, J. B. & Hersted, L., Behind the Scenes of Artistic Creativity, Frankfurt, Peter Lang, 2015; “Distributed Problem-Solving: How Artists’ Participatory Strategies Can Inspire Creativity in Higher Education.” In Zhou, C. (Ed.). Handbook of Research on Creative Problem-Solving Skill Development in Higher Education. IGI global. 2016; “The Teaching Artist as Cultural Learning Entrepreneur: An Introductory Conceptualization.” In Teaching Artist Journal. 2015. 13, 2, pp. 84–94.

She is currently involved in research projects examining artistic creativ-ity cross-culturally, arts-integrated educational designs in schools and the role of emotions in learning. She is Italian, a yoga enthusiast, amateur sketcher and excellent cook, married to a splendid Dane and mother of two sons and has lived in Denmark since 1999.

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LisT oF Figures

Fig. 1.1 Theatre laboratory values 13Fig. 1.2 Julia Varley’s summing up Odin Teatret’s educational

and laboratory activities 23Fig. 2.1 Taxonomy of educational designs at Odin Teatret

(illustrations by Karsten Auerbach) 58Fig. 2.2 Iben Nagel Rasmussen’s educational design 62Fig. 2.3 Kai Bredholt’s educational design 63Fig. 3.1 Barba’s childhood experience 94Fig. 3.2 Serendipity and transformation dynamics 108Fig. 3.3 Learning as incremental changes 120Fig. 3.4 Eugenio Barba orchestrating (Photo by Frida Gregersen) 126Fig. 4.1 Carolina Pizarro’s progression of work 143Fig. 4.2 Carolina Pizarro’s progression of work: a fourth level? 143Fig. 4.3 Rosa Antuña as pupil educator 156Fig. 4.4 Carolina Pizarro on stage (Photo by Rina Skeel) 166Fig. 7.1 Roberta Carreri taking notes during a feedback process

(Photo by Frida Gregersen) 212Fig. 8.1 Third space and coexistence of opposites 225Fig. 8.2 The artist’s studio 228

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LisT oF TabLes

Table 1.1 Historical overview of the development of theatre laboratory 7Table 8.1 Integration of formal and informal elements 222