A theatre and its city

The experience of the Festuge in thirty years of Odin Teatret’s history

Abstract

The Festuge is an artistic, historical and consolidated practice of work, which involves an entire community of citizens; was conceived by Odin Teatret in 1989 and it have been developed in Holstebro, Denmark, over thirty years of activity. For nine days and nine nights, every three years, thousands of citizens are actively involved and participated in a festival of widespread theatricality that is held in the streets of the city, in the surrounding countryside and extends to involve several neighboring villages. The Festuge offers a field of study still little explored in the broader history of Odin Teatret, despite the fact that it took place for ten editions over the span of about thirty years of history of the Danish theater company and despite its great relevance as an innovative artistic practice. This article is intended to be a first partial contribution to the historical systematization of the Festuge and highlights some elements capable of describing the style and spirit of the initiative, with some specific references to the historical journey of Odin Teatret. The contribution focuses in particular on the first editions of the festival, in which the characteristics of a homogeneous and continuous artistic design already emerge.