The Art of the Impossible
Regissør: Elsa Kvamme
(Norge)

Filmmaker Elsa Kvamme has previously taught at Eugenio Barba. Now his Odin Theater has celebrated 50 years, and Kvamme has returned – this time with the camera in hand.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

"Our theater is made up of unsuccessful individuals," Eugenio Barba said of the Odin Theater. A theater founded by people no one wanted. They supported theater. The weeds.

No one wanted director Barba, even after studying with legendary Jercy Grotowski in Poland. Then Barba made his own theater, and the actors he found with those who were rejected by the State Theater College. In Oslo, the theater was not welcome, so they sought shelter in Danish Holsterbro and have stayed there ever since. Now the Odin Theater has been 50 years, and is wanted and admired in many parts of the world. Barba has been an honorary doctorate at 13 universities – including Havana, Warsaw, Hong Kong and Buenos Aires.

True to yourself. I am touched when I see Odin Theater's performances. Touched because they are so true to their own expression, so true to something they believe in; so distant from irony, so fearless, so awake, so political, so wild, so hot, so damn capable in everything they do. Their scenic ecology, how everything is connected to everything, seems liberating. Their seemingly complete freedom from suffocating trends feels life-giving. We are not going to see Odin's practitioners strolling naked around the stage because they do it in Berlin or Belgium. They are not going to use video or talk in microphone because it is trendy right now. They are not going to masturbate or vomit on stage just for the sake of the excess. They do what they do because they have to. Because the work dictates it. Because vision requires it.

Yes, I am touched. Touched by their uniqueness and that for over 50 years they have managed not only to survive as a free scenic group, but also to grow, renew and evolve. When I saw The chronic life at Black Box in 2015, I wanted the show to never end. That feeling.

Elsa Kvamme has made a film about this theater with an emphasis on Eguenio Barbara's work. That's understandable. He is the visionary and undisputed leader of the theater. The man has recently turned 80 and exudes a power, warmth and will that is indescribably inspiring. The movie is called The Art of the Impossible and premiered at Porsgrunn International Theater Festival in June this year.

Odin's practitioners will not masturbate or vomit on stage just for the sake of transgression.

I am also touched by the fact that Kvamme has made a film about the Odin Theater, although the film does not touch me in the same way as the theater's performances do. The film director knows the theater well, she even worked at the Odin Theater in the period 1973-75 and calls Barba "her first great teacher". She has also written insightfully about this in the book Dear Jens, Dear Eugenio (Pax, 2004), based on the exchange of letters between Jens Bjørneboe and Eugenio Barba. These two developed a close friendship when Barba stayed in Oslo in the 60's. Bear's text The Bird Lovers was the first piece the theater worked on. They then worked the sweat strained in a cold and damp bomb room in Oslo, with the result The ornithophiles which in 1964 became their first performance. In the film we also know that in every performance Barba includes a small text by Bjørneboe – in one form or another.

Theater can be gunpowder and anarchy, and it can change people's lives.

Fascinating journey. The best part The Art of the Impossiblet is how Kvamme has used the many archive recordings. I like the flashes too The chronic life works well. These contemporary movie clips allow us to see the essentials of the theater today – their musicality, their physicality, multi-voiced dramaturgy and widespread use of symbols and masks. The movie is presented as a road movie; a type of movie where the journey becomes the dramaturgical hub, the one that initiates the action and causes the character to change. This is not the case in this film, although we follow Kvamme on the Danish boat from Oslo and on by car to Holsterbro. We also travel with Barba and Kvamme to Oslo, Poland and France, but this grip acts more like a "down memory lane" drama. It is Barbara's reflections that are the focus, and it is an exciting enough journey in itself. We follow the Italian from when he left his homeland as a 16-year-old through the years of learning from a plumber in Oslo, to the work with Grotowski in Poland and the establishment of Barbas's own theater. We are told how the theater's soul has spread from Holsterbro to the world. The archive footage from the theater's many journeys is seen as absolutely essential, and I'm glad Kvamme has chosen to devote so much time to these. The film is informative – we get to know a lot about this distinctive theater. Barba has always been concerned with social inequalities and xenophobia, and the performances are both ritual and political. The work extends far beyond the black walls, and includes popular projects with a local population who may never feel comfortable in a dark theater hall. This dynamic between popular and experimental is well described.

Maybe the movie could have earned a somewhat tighter dramaturgy? There are many tracks to follow, many faces that say a bit, and there are several who make statements without us knowing who they are. Some of the theater's actors are interviewed; Most interesting is hearing Iben Nagel Rasmussen talk about the transition from a life as an addict to becoming an actor. Here I find that the film goes deeper, and we get a clue why theater can be so important in people's lives. Theater can be gunpowder and anarchy, theater can change lives, even though theater is usually the tedium of death. But the last is the Odin Theater never.

It was not a stupid idea for Barba to collect the outposts. Tendrils of. The ones nobody wanted. Weeds, as you know, have the ability to endure for a long time – bow almost below – and then reappear with renewed vigor. Remember that, all of you who feel like nobody wants you.

Watch the movie here

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