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Why Theatre? - Mike Pearson
IMAGINARY ARCHEOLOGY AND THE MICKERY THEATRE, AMSTERDAM
With Mike Pearson, Professor of Performance Studies, Aberystwyth University
In this Why Theatre? meeting, Mike Pearson will explore the relationship between theatre and archaeology, and will reflect on how this field of research informs his work on a future project: his contribution to a written history of the Mickery Theatre, Amsterdam.
Biography
Mike Pearson trained as an archaeologist. He was a member of RAT theatre (1972-73) and artistic director of both Cardiff Laboratory Theatre (1973-80) and Brith Gof (1981-97). He continues to make performances with Pearson/Brookes (1997-present) and as a solo artist. Since 1999 he has been professor of performance studies in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Aberystwyth University. He is co-author with Michael Shanks (Professor of Classics, Stanford University) of Theatre/Archaeology (2001, Routledge) and author of In Comes I: Performance, Memory and Landscape (2006, University of Exeter Press).
Imaginary archeology
Conventionally perhaps, we think of archaeology as something to do with ‘digging up the past’. Although excavation is an essential retrieval methodology of archaeology, it is not in and of itself the discipline. We might better regard archaeology as a practice, set in the present that works on and with the traces of the past. Archaeology then is the relation we maintain with the past: it consists of a work of mediation with the past. The past ‘as it was’ or ‘as it happened’ is an illusionary category, not something stable, something homogeneous. In this sense, archaeology is something that each of us routinely does: we could call this ‘the archaeological imagination’.
For twenty-five years – from 1965 to 1990 – the Mickery Theatre was an important centre, both nationally and internationally, for the development of new theatre practices. The Mickery created its own ground-breaking performances and was host to pioneering directors and companies from the US, Europe, Japan and elsewhere. Many visitors would become leading voices in the field and the Mickery itself became renowned as a crucial locale of innovation. All this was done under the vision and guidance of the extraordinary Ritsaert ten Cate. Given the extent of its programme, its influence on both audiences and local theatre practitioners alike, and its far-reaching effect on the alternative theatre scene, how then is it possible to write a history of the Mickery Theatre?
This may be possible through writing an imaginary archaeology of the Mickery Theatre in which archival research, oral history and field observations are combined. There is no claim to completeness: fragments of differing types are assembled to create a partial picture. No claim is made for absolute certainty: all we can ever do is try to make sense of something that was never that certain in the first place. That is why such work will always be ‘imaginary’. And in this, quietly, more general questions are raised about theatre scholarship and methodology in relation to ephemeral events, which allow for thinking more specifically about what remains, the nature of evidence, and the role and function of memory.
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INFORMATION
Date / time:
December 11, 16.30h
Place: Sweelinckzaal, Drift 21, Utrecht
Entrance is free.
Please make a reservation, by sending an e-mail to whytheatre@theatrestudies.nl
MAILING LIST
If you would like us to keep you informed about next Why Theatre? events, apply as well to the e-mail adress whytheatre@theatrestudies.nl
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