Barba, Eugenio (1936– )

Italian-born theatre director and theorist. A former assistant to Jerzy Grotowski, he founded Odin Teatret in 1964 in Oslo, Norway, later moving with the company to Holstebro in Denmark, where he established the International School for Theatre Anthropology in 1979 for research into trans-cultural performance. He has organized conventions for the Third Theatre, a loose grouping of alternative companies across several continents, and with Odin Teatret has promoted the idea of ‘barter’, whereby visiting companies exchange performances with their hosts. Productions with Odin Teatret include Kaspariana (1967) and Kaosmos (1993).