by Enrico Masseroli

the road to the East starts from eastern Europe

My professional career began in 1973 within the TTB, Teatro Tascabile of Bergamo, while I was still a student of modern literature at the University of Milan. The young group had soon established itself as one of the most vital of experimental theater in Italy and our perfoformances invited abroad. It happened that my first contact with Bali was in 1976 and it took place in Belgrade. The capital of the former Yugoslavia hosted the renowned international theater festival BITEF, within which, thanks to the patronage of UNESCO, took place a meeting of young groups from all over the world, directed by Eugenio Barba.

ISTA, International School of Theatre Anthropology he founded a few years later, was already on the air. Jerzy Grotowski, who was also present, assisted in background. Among the conductors of the workshops there was also a Balinese: Tapa Sudana, afterwards interpreter of memorable performances with Peter Brook. I remember the general fun in the thunderous "Kecak" orchestrated by him, and his demonstration with the masks of topeng, suddenly interrupted as the actor had just started, betraying a certain awkwardness, when suddenly he stopped (something was wrong, maybe he was afraid to commit some sacrilege?) and sheepishly apologizing put his masks away. I was struck by Tapa also byb his curious habit of spreading cigarettes with tiger balm, an aromatic ointment that is used for massage. Years later I realized that it was a way for him to remember the taste of "kretek", the Indonesian cigarettes, sweet and aromatic.

In September of the following year The Teatro Tascabile organized in Bergamo an "International Atelier of theater by group", which has become a landmark event for our generation, in full "theatrical revolution". Directed by Eugenio Barba, groups gathered from Europe and America witnessed the special appearance of renowned masters from India, Japan and Bali (I Made Bandem with his family).The comparison east / west appeared as a necessary step for the theatrical research. But at the time, because I was addicted to the organization and committed at night in a "parallel" work with Grotowski, I missed among other events, just the demonstration of the Balineses.

The after renowned Atelier did leave shoots much alive. My group, the TTB, continues to approache, more and more deeply, the classical Indian theater, especially Kathakali. The following year, in July of 1978 we were in Santarcangelo di Romagna, taking part in the festival which was then a kind of "Woodstock" for the new theater generation. There I see finally the Balinese dance presented - with recorded music - by the performer who will become my master, I Made Djimat.

The impression is huge, one is mesmerized by the steady and vibrating energy punctuated by sudden bursts. I feel just a little bit disappointed at the end when that magical appearence, coated with a god, widening a captivating smile, exchanges with the audiencea some awkward, winking word. Imbued by the earnest intransigence of the neophytes, I thought inappropriate and sacrilegious such a naive behaviour!

At the end of such an intense and stressful summer, the TTB, thanks to the determined vision of its director, Renzo Vescovi, takes a bold decision: let's go! The theoretical motivation went like this: "as the Orientals study our arts and no wonder if we find them interpreters of opera or classical ballet, why should not the reverse be possible? And so it happened that we Europeans went on the field to study professionally Eastern performing arts.

The issues related to this choice are of course complex. Beyond Eurocentric foreclosures or superficial adhesions, they affect not only the technical learning of the scenic forms, but to understand what is a tradition, its aesthetic and its metaphys.

I supposed to go to India, as my colleagues. To move more to the east my goal was Jerzy Grotowski.ics.

Before departure, between November and December, I spent a couple of weeks with the great Polish master in a remote former farmhouse in the Polish countryside, surrounded by darkness and soon covered with snow. We experimented around practices that would later become the project "The theater of sources". Knowing that he had been in India, I asked Master advice on schools and teachers, he said something like this: "The Indian theater, even in its vast complexity, it is very well defined, with geometric precision. You can understand it by studying and you do not lack the will! But what you really need you can find it in Bali. There is oral tradition, difficult to steal, to get into it you will need to get in the game, challenging your creativity. "Was it clear? I do not know how far it was, however, the route was traced.

But where the island of Bali lies? Retrospectively it seems incredible: watching the travel agency's Atlas I tried under the India, imagining it was there, more or less south / east of Sri Lanka. Only then I discovered that it was in Indonesia, much more far away! I left on December 28, 1978.