ODIN TEATRET ARCHIVES (OTA) - Documents All the materials deposited at Odin Teatret Archives can be consulted at any time and by any person, on agreement with the person responsible for the archives. The personal letters, i.e. those not addressed to the Odin ensemble, cannot be consulted and/or quoted (not even partially, and not even if mentioned in this inventory) for a period of sixty years from the time they were written. The letters older than sixty years can be consulted and quoted only with written permission of the author or the Odin Teatret Archives. The person authorized to read or quote the correspondence is still expected to respect the private nature of the information. FONDS CARRERI Inventory * Series Carreri (Compiled by Mirella Schino in collaboration with Francesca Romana Rietti. The work started in 2010 and additions and revisions were made during the following years. The information that could not be inferred from the documents, or from books and articles, was provided by Roberta Carreri, and it is here included as a source of oral testimony in support of the documents. The general considerations on the theatrical or historical situation are by Mirella Schino). Roberta Carreri, actress at Odin Teatret, teacher and theatre organiser. She was born in 1953 in Milan, where she graduated as advertising designer and studied History of Art at the State University. She joined Odin Teatret in 1974, during the group's sojourn in Carpignano Salentino. She participated in ISTA (International School of Theatre Anthropology) since its first session in 1980, and came in contact with the performance techniques of Japan, India, Bali and China. From 1980 to 1986 she studied with Japanese masters, namely Katsuko Azuma, Natsu Nakajima and Kazuo Ohno. She gives workshops for actors all over the world and presents her work demonstration Traces in the Snow. She organises and directs the yearly international festival Odin Week, in Holstebro and abroad. In 2009 she directed the performance Rumor with Cinzia Ciaramicoli for the Masakini Theatre Company (Malaysia). She published numerous articles in the theatre journals “New Theatre Quarterly”, “Teatro e Storia”, “Máscara”, “The Open Page” and “Performance Research”. In 2007 she published the book Tracce. Training e storia di un’attrice dell’Odin Teatret (Traces. Training and history of an actress at Odin Teatret), translated in Portuguese and in Spanish. She was first married to another Odin actor, Francis Pardeilhan, and later lived with Torgeir Wethal as his partner from approximately 1982 until his death. The Fonds includes several binders containing different kinds of work materials, and especially (binders 13 to 29) the work diaries that Carreri started writing in 1974, when she arrived at Odin Teatret. Many Odin actors have, or had for some time, the habit of keeping work diaries but Carreri's are probably the tidiest and most detailed ones. The memory of the Odin group about dates or sequence of events is inevitably vague and rather contradictory, and the same is often true for the 1 information added by Odin people (mostly Barba) to these inventories. Carreri's diaries are uncommonly accurate: generally the dates she wrote or indicated verbally are the most reliable ones. Carreri's diaries, in Italian, are one of the most valuable materials of these archives. They are not simply notes, they convey the vivid and detailed story of a very special professional life. They include descriptions of improvisations and of Carreri's thoughts during the improvisations. Carreri wrote during the rehearsals, even when the performances were about to start and the audience was coming in the space. She transcribed the speeches given by Barba to inaugurate the work for a new performance, mainly long verbal improvisations meant exclusively for his actors. She described the way the director stimulated and guided his actors' improvisations. Very rarely she wrote about a discussion or a conflict: these diaries are not private (Carreri writes other private diaries). They illustrate the development of actions for an Odin performance. Often the entries are integrated with drawings and newspaper cuttings. Carreri, b. 1 Materials concerning Brecht's ashes (for the first time performed in 1980), among others the text of the performance Brecht’s Ashes (first version). Among other items, it includes some pages from one of Roberta's work diaries: this proves the application of the diaries to the work on performances as well as the actress's nearly obsessive tidiness. As written above, the diaries are exceptional documents, perhaps the only documents that can partially evoke the atmosphere and the process of creative work at Odin Teatret. The pages are dated 3 April 1981 (this means that the work concerned the second version of Brecht in 1982; on the two versions of Brecht's ashes see Fonds Odin Teatret, especially b. 5 of the series Perf-A) and begin with the description of an improvisation by Francis Pardeilhan: Time: 11. Francis, I and Eugenio in the white room. Francis shows a proposal for his entrance in the first scene. E.: we are here representing something very dangerous. We can see this in many ways. As Brecht for example: in a grotesque way. But this diminishes reality while theatre should amplify it. We should find a way to break the clichés. The question for you is not about finding “external” solutions (like throwing stones) but having precise images to guide you. Who are you? Which associations do you want to evoke? For the first time I hear Eugenio speak with a calm voice in a way that I feel right and inspiring for Francis. A long silence follows. Crouched to the ground, the 2 stones and a pair of black gloves by his side, the index to his lips – “it is very difficult for me to think this way”. You just need to find your previous soul!!! E.: you must try and think more like an actor, in a way that colours your behaviour. There is also a drawing of Francis (at the time Carreri's husband) sitting crouched and thinking, songs, poems etc. Excerpts from the typescript diary used for the book Il Brecht dell’Odin (Odin's Brecht). Versions of the performance text in all the languages in which it was translated. Carreri, b. 2 A miscellaneous binder in which Carreri had placed various notebooks, sheets of paper and journals about her trip to Africa (1982), notes of songs. A notebook from 1984 (“To break free from automatisms. Flying. Adrenaline. Pavlov's dog”; “Flying to believe in yourself; you cannot expect others to see your work and believe in it, if you don't believe in it yourself”). There is a journal- diary of the trip to Africa (in June 1982 Carreri travelled to Africa for a long “barter” with anthropologist Mette Bovin; see also the 1983 film Dances in the sand in the Audiovisual Fonds. A fragment of the diary was published in the actress's book Tracce). The notebook is dated 27 January 1983 and is entitled “Dialogue with Nando”. Perhaps it is a story written a few months later. Nando is certainly Nando Taviani, scholar and literary adviser at Odin Teatret. As I was saying, the starting point is, was, fear of dying. That fear of dying that is due to the desire to die, the will to be reborn. The journey started the very moment I got on the train. Immediately, the moment I stepped into this wagon alone, with this huge and very heavy suitcase, I had the desire to go back. I actually said to myself: so, why am I 2 going to Africa? I don't have the smallest desire to go to Africa. I have to stop nursing my 10-month-old daughter to go to Africa. This project doesn't interest me, this project doesn't fascinate me. If I want I can take the train back which means: I get to Copenhagen, I change tracks and I take the first morning train to Holstebro. This is technically possible. It was incredible but, although I was aware of this being technically possible, it was something absolutely impossible. The binder also contains some very beautiful letters (but the recipients are sometimes uncertain) in which Carreri speaks of her life and her choices (“I took a train, it was April – to join a group of people completely unknown to me but to whom I linked my destiny from the moment I saw their performance Min Fars Hus. It was 3 May 1973. April was just finished. Another warm spring evening in Bergamo alta. Nine years ago. I saw a performance and I cried”). A series of images that were used as a starting point to build the “score” of the performance Judith. Carreri, b. 3 A small bundle of documents concerning the “book of actors” proposed by Franco Quadri and never produced (Carreri is the contact person with the publisher Ubulibri, Quadri. See Fonds Odin Teatret, series Environment, b. 11, and series Activities, b. 45). It is approximately 1982 (see also Fonds Carreri b. 18). In a very long and interesting letter Carreri explains to the publisher the reasons and the way the Odin actors wish to produce this book (“Odin Teatret means contrast: individuals who struggle not to be assimilated - ‘fusi’ -, who keep their strength and continue to be interesting for their working partners as long as they can maintain their individuality […] it would be wrong to write using a starting point that is not our own. Many actors at Odin Teatret would have never chosen to become actors in a traditional theatre or in another group. Many barely know the theatre outside our boundaries.