Bananes et mystère: Interview by Julia Varley

Abstract

Julia Varley interviews Jean-Marie Pradier about the circumstances of his meeting with Eugenio Barba in 1975 in Holstebro. At the time he was based in Montevideo, Uruguay, where he had founded an experimental theatre group; Pradier was immediately attracted by the artistic, theoretical and ethical orientation of Barba’s research. Pradier invited Barba to speak in September 1979 at the International Colloquium in Karpacz, Poland, on the biological aspects of theatre, in which also Henri Laborit (Albert Lasker Prize for Medicine) and Jerzy Grotowski took part. In turn, Barba invited Pradier to join the founding team of ISTA - International School of Theatre Anthropology, and to participate in its first session in Bonn in 1980. The interview looks back at the intense exchange of these circumstances, and their influence on the creation of ethnoscenology (1995).