Mike Pearson is Professor of Performance Studies, University of Wales Aberystwyth. Mike trained as an archaeologist. Between 1972 and 1997, in a series of companies including RAT Theatre, Cardiff Laboratory Theatre and Brith Gof, he pioneered new and innovative approaches to the form, function and placement of performance in Wales and further afield — South America, Hong Kong, Eastern Europe. This included spectacular and epic site specific productions such as Brith Gof's Gododdin and Haearn as well as intimate solo performances (with Mike Brookes). Mike Pearson joined Aberystwyth in 1997 and launched the Performance Studies degree scheme in 1999.
Mike Perason's research interests include performance studies (physical theatre, devised performance, site-specific work and disability and performance); Theatre/Archaeology: examination of points of convergence between contemporary performance theory and practice and interpretive approaches in archaeology; biography, memory and personal narrative in performance. He has written the hybrid work Theatre/Archaeology (Routledge 2001) with Michael Shanks available on Michael's site at [link], and has just completed a work of chorography on the landscape and folk traditions of his native Lincolnshire.
A major documentation of Brith Gof’s performances is being developed at Stanford as part of Michael Shanks’s Metamedia Lab at [link].
Michael was a company director of Brith Gof from 1997 until the company closed in 2004. An interesting paper by Michael is Towards an Archaeology of Performance.
Nick Kaye also introduces Brith Gof's work in relation to architectural theory and the performance of site in Brith Gof: 'Placeevent'.
News about current work and Mike Pearson and Mike Brookes's engagement with the Presence Project are at [link]
More information about Mike Brookes's work is at [link]
