Linea Trasversale, Flesh and Soul: Other Stages, New Perspectives

The following article answers the specific need of providing information to all those who continually ask, “What is Linea Trasversale (LT)?” LT was founded in 1995 as a strategy to avoid isolation, in the shadow of the educational network called University of Eurasian Theatre (Università del Teatro Eurasiano-UTE), directed by Eugenio Barba. Seen in the perspective of the “Third Theatre”, the work and the very existence of LT open up new ways of making and conceiving theatre. LT’s approach to theatre is anthropological in two ways: 1) its research is aimed at the study of the anthropological similarities among different theatrical cultures, and 2) its theoretical starting point is Barba’s “Theatre Anthropology”. LT denies the very conventions of theatre: unlike traditional commercial theatre or avant-garde theatre, there is no paying audience sitting in a theatre for a few hours in order to be entertained or shocked, respectively. The main purpose of LT is the research itself.