http://www.mikebrookes.com/ambivalence/pearsonbrookes/works.htm
Between 9.00pm and 10.15pm on Sunday 23rd August 1998, Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson performed the first five miles across the hill top and high ground of Mynydd Bach above the village of Trefenter in West Wales. The event; the structure of which marked a key shift within both the intentions and formal development of Brookes' recent performance work; was realised in collaboration with local inhabitants and land owners, the local independent radio station Radio Ceredigion, and BBC resources.
Pearson and Brookes walked a specifically linear five miles journey among peat bog, high pasture and wind-farm turbines carrying portable two way radio equipment. The texts performed by Mike Pearson were combined, via a live satellite link, with pre-recorded material simultaneously broadcast by Radio Ceredigion; to create a complex bilingual stereo radio work transmitted and openly available over an area up to fifty miles in radius from Mynydd Bach.
The broadcast, a layered bilingual docu-drama subtitled "Rhyfel y Sais Bach" [ the war of the little Englishman ], explored the story of Augustus Brackenbury, his purchase of 850 acres of common moorland and bog from the Enclosure Commissioners in 1820, the subsequent enclosure riots, and the frustration by local inhabitants of his repeated attempts to build houses on the land; a critical and resonant period in the history of the landscape and community of Mynydd Bach.
the first five miles attracted a transient community of some two hundred individuals to vantage points along the route; either out in the open with radios pressed to their ears, or grid-locked in cars: and a wider radio audience of over fifteen thousand.
The man who are his boots marked the second studio base collaboration by Brookes and Pearson; and represented a direct response to issues arising within the recent act of the first five miles, and an exploration of possibilities for the re-examination and presentation of these issues within a studio context. It attempted to address issues of home, of the place we think we belong, of emigration and the impossibility of ever returning, through an examination of the exploits of four men from an area of Lincolnshire. Two who left for Wales, a third who grew sugar in Australia and a fourth who tried to walk to the north pole.
"Weaving together family history, geography, genealogy, memoir, autobiography, forensic data, quotations, lies and jokes; the man who are his boots creates contemporary stories - stories about stories - which value the small narratives of individual lives, as a means of holding the past and the present together."
"Mike Pearson’s performance includes anecdotes, traveller’s tales, improvised asides, physical re-enactment, impersonations and intimate reflections on the nature of memory and personal loss. Mike Brookes’ design creates an innovative aural landscape which allows the spectator to experience performance in a totally new way."
Mike Pearson performed the text of this complex four part monologue among an informal gathering of spectators, contained within a space defined and lit simply by the physical and durational structure of four small back-projection screens. The screens detailed the route of their previous five mile journey, through Brookes' photographic documentation of the surrounding landscape at fifth of a mile intervals. The aural structure of Mike Brookes' design layered music and ambient material from multiple sources to construct a driving sound work that made it impossible to engage acoustically with the spoken text of Pearsons' performance, while enabling the delivery of his voice directly to each spectator individually via short range radio link and the individual headsets of an infra red translation loop. The headsets, simultaneously providing quality vocal relay and acting as ear plugs to dampen the room ambient, enabling: [1] the desired mix within the spectators head individually, [2] an experience of isolation from the collective audience group, and [3] a heightened sense of direct contact with the performer.
The man who are his boots was initially developed and presented within the Centre of Performance Research : 'performance, places and pasts' conference, Aberystwyth, 1998.
Posted by walkinginplace at November 22, 2004 10:37 PM