This banquet of creative women

Dear Magdalenas,

This afternoon, I arrived at the house of Odin Teatret. I come back here after seven years, and many things have happened during this time.

Upon entering, I find Julia, sitting at the round table in the entrance hall. She writes on the computer and is surrounded by folders prepared for guests and participants. She is very beautiful in a wonderful coat, a long turquoise jacket, and a marvellous red scarf - “It's a gift from Ya-ling Peng” she tells me, smiling. “It comes from Taiwan”. I sink into her embrace, and now yes, I realise I've arrived at Transit X.

One by one, the others begin to appear, the Magdalenas who have arrived before and who are helping Julia. Tatiana (from Brazil) has prepared an exquisite soup for us all - vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free - in short, no intolerance can defeat her!

Outside there is light, although after a while the sky lets fall some fine droplets. It's cold and my body is processing the change in temperature, from the summer heat of Madrid to these northern airs. Crossing the corridors, until I reach the Grotowski room that is prepared for me, I stop again and again greeting teachers, colleagues or students found in other corners of the world, and new travel sisters.

The corridor quickly transforms into an experience of melodies that get in, like the wind under the doors, and comes out of the rehearsal rooms, welcoming smells of spaces that have known the care and affection of a company that is almost 58 years old. The creative women arrive, one by one, and take over the house and I feel like saying THANK YOU!

How wonderful, once more, this magic has been achieved!

Thank you Magdalenas, thanks to the women who have worked to make this meeting possible. Thank you Julia Varley for embodying the three words that we read under the title of this TRANSIT X meeting: woman, theater, courage. Because that's the point, for a woman dedicated to the theater to be able ( in these times and in these circumstances) to manage to summon us all again, it does take a lot of courage. Just as Julia wrote in her article in the 2019 publication of The Open Page “Risking / Hope” today I also ask myself: “Do we make theater only with the purpose of making theater?” I see behind the word "courage" chosen by Julia, the words love and meeting between human beings in the artistic act, that brings us together.

Just arriving here, comes the delight of the irrepressible energies that move the unmovable, that seek solutions, that generate possibilities for other paths, other opportunities, other visions, another future, other answers to arrive, from women and for women. Tomorrow begins a calendar full of activities that will keep us in the theatre room all day long, learning, exchanging, making mistakes, and therefore growing.

Many Magdalenas shows that I still don't know, so many experiences of masters who have become friends and for whom I have infinite respect and esteemed. A wonderful women's dance that, in the turn of spiral of the snail, are at same time daughters, grandmothers, girls, mothers, sisters, friends... I think of those that are not here and should have been, I dedicate my dance to you and I promise to write. I thank to the colleagues from Laboratorio Internacional Residui Teatro for taking care of all the initiatives that are underway in Spain and making my presence here possible. I thank Julia for inviting me to attend this banquet of creative women.

I close my eyes...

Everything starts tomorrow.

Grateful to be here, Vivi

Holstebro, 2.6.2022