MIKE BROOKES [ archives and chronologies : performances ]

 

The sky was clearer in those days / On a clear day you can see for ever [ Episode 5 ] : a large-scale intermedial performance work, concluding the act of publicly dismantling and breaking down a used family salon car into its smallest possible elements – considering the car as a geophysically improbable place and object, and as an exemplar of the reach and interconnectedness it embodies, through the geographically diverse materials and processes gathered in its construction. This last of the work’s five distinct episodes collected everything that might find a new use or purpose, gave it away, and took a look at what remained.
Mike Brookes and Rosa Casado : commissioned, performed and presented Chile and Europe, 2019-current

The sky was clearer in those days / On a clear day you can see for ever [ Episode 4 ] : a large-scale intermedial performance work, continuing and building upon the act of publicly dismantling and breaking down a used family car into its smallest possible elements – considering the car as a geophysically improbable place and object, and as an exemplar of the reach and interconnectedness it embodies, through the geographically diverse materials and processes gathered in its construction. This forth of the work’s five distinct episodes followed the dust that rises and settles from everything, and the remnants passed on, and never escaped.
Mike Brookes and Rosa Casado : commissioned, performed and presented Chile and Europe, 2019-current

The sky was clearer in those days / On a clear day you can see for ever [ Episode 3 ] : a large-scale intermedial performance work, continuing and building upon the act of publicly dismantling and breaking down a used family car into its smallest possible elements – considering the car as a geophysically improbable place and object, and as an exemplar of the reach and interconnectedness it embodies, through the geographically diverse materials and processes gathered in its construction. This third of the work’s five distinct episodes imagined the human population as a force of nature, and the scale of geological forces and events that might begin to mirror our own.
Mike Brookes and Rosa Casado : commissioned, performed and presented Chile and Europe, 2019-current

The sky was clearer in those days / On a clear day you can see for ever [ Episode 2 ] : a large-scale intermedial performance work, continuing and building upon the act of publicly dismantling and breaking down a used family car into its smallest possible elements – considering the car as a geophysically improbable place and object, and as an exemplar of the reach and interconnectedness it embodies, through the geographically diverse materials and processes gathered in its construction. This second of the work’s five distinct episodes looked up at the thin layer of atmosphere that surrounds the planet, and at how the things it picks up and blows around us define what we see.
Mike Brookes and Rosa Casado : commissioned, performed and presented Chile and Europe, 2019-current

The sky was clearer in those days / On a clear day you can see for ever [ Episode 1 ] : a large-scale intermedial performance work, performing and building upon the act of publicly dismantling and breaking down a used family car into its smallest possible elements – considering the car as a geophysically improbable place and object, and as an exemplar of the reach and interconnectedness it embodies, through the geographically diverse materials and processes gathered in its construction. This first of the work’s five distinct episodes began with the final journey of one of the 1 billion cars estimated to be driving around the streets of the planet.
Mike Brookes and Rosa Casado : commissioned, performed and presented Chile and Europe, 2019-current

storm.3 [together and alone] : in the weeks leading up to the UK’s first planned date for departure from the EU, within a space reconfigured through the installation of a 160m2 sloping floor that provided the work’s public and performance space, and littered with 2.5 tons of used and discarded clothing diverted from its journey through local recycling processes, eight local performers and spoken-word artists delivered a series of personal soliloquies drawn from Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘The Ethics of Ambiguity’ - a collection of essays exploring ideas of freedom, personal choice and agency, published within the desolation and optimism that followed WW2, at the birth to the Europe that has followed. The third work in the exploratory ’Storm Cycle’ series.
Mike Brookes, National Theatre Wales : commissioned and performed in Newport, Wales, 2019.

quiet, too quiet, but not silent : a performed spatial sound work, providing a sequenced and reflective consideration of five disparate and inaccessible places on the planet’s surface – the ambient sound spaces of each imagined and reconstructed live, amongst and around the gathered crowd, using only a bag of forty pocket dictaphones and the collections of captured aural fragments they contain.
Mike Brookes and Rosa Casado : commissioned and performed in Madrid, Spain, 2018

storm.2 [things come apart] : an informal ‘autopsy’ and narration of the events of four days and nights of vicious rioting in Cardiff in June 1919, within a city centre site still standing at the heart of the effected area – using only the unfolding newspaper reports, court records, personal statement, photographic images and street maps from the period. The second work in the exploratory ’Storm Cycle’ series.
Mike Brookes, Mike Pearson, National Theatre Wales : commissioned and performed in Cardiff, Wales, 2018.

storm.1 [nothing remains the same] : a duet of performed acts, juxtaposing intimately narrated reimaginings of the texts of the first two books of Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ with fully-realised theatrical actions – the first set against a complex spatially and physically immersive evocation of a storm created entirely through sound within complete darkness, the second set against the sustained live spectacle of an actively burning 8m high dead oak tree. The first work in the exploratory ’Storm Cycle’ series.
Mike Brookes, Mike Pearson, National Theatre Wales : commissioned and performed in Pontrhydfendigaid, Wales, 2018.

iliad : a marathon eleven-hour located theatre work, delivering a verbatim intermedial staging of the entirety of Christopher Logue’s epic poem 'War Music’, derived from Homer’s account of the last weeks of the Trojan War. The voiced text was spoken into a network of handheld microphones – mixed live with additional audio elements to produce a spatially and aurally shifting durational sound work – within an evolving physical environment, constantly refigured thought the movements and progressive arrangements of the gathered crowd, 400 white plastic garden chairs, 250 used car tyres, assorted timbers, ropes and tape… “…This theatremaking is steely and severe, but it is also bracingly alive. Iliad is certainly the theatrical event of the year. It may be the theatrical event of the decade” [The Guardian *****].
Mike Brookes, Mike Pearson, National Theatre Wales : commissioned and performed Llanelli, Wales 2015

carrying Rubén : on Wednesday May 25th 2016 Mike Brookes, Salut Bueno, Nazario Díaz, Amai Fernández, Axier and Joel carried Rubén Mateos Lima - a local performer with advanced multiple sclerosis – across the centre of the city of Bilbao. Twice. From 8pm, for an audience in Azkuna Zentroa Gallery space, Mike Brookes simultaneously constructed and presented possible versions of both journeys, in real time, from the available documentation. Mixing video and audio recordings from the first Journey with footage from the second couriered to him directly from the street. The intervention reconsidered the multi-site Pearson/Brookes work 'Carrying Lyn', fifteen years after its original performance in Cardiff in 2001, for the contemporary streets of central Bilbao.
Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson [Pearson/Brookes] : commissioned and performed Biblao, Spain 2016.

coriolan/us : large scale located promanade theatre event, delivering the text of Shakespeare’s 'Coriolanus', including extracts from Brecht’s unfinished adaptation 'Coriolan', within the vast space of a decommissioned 1930's aircraft hanger. Commissioned by National Theatre Wales and the Royal Shakespeare Company, for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
Mike Brookes, Mike Pearson, National Threatre Wales, Royal Shakespeare Company : commissioned and performed Hangar 858, St Athan, Wales 2012.

just a little bit of history repeating [Euskalduna Shipyards] : intervention in public space, attempting to reconstruct fragments of the now absent shipyard buildings through the in situ personal descriptions of four ex-workers, revisiting details and movements within the architecture and working days of those buildings.
Mike Brookes and Rosa Casado: commissioned and performed Bilbao, Spain 2011.

what if everything we know is wrong? : a performance and sound work for public space, using only fragments of captured sound, chalk drawing, and polaroid images for reference, in an attempt to reconstruct somewhere else, specific and absent, within the space of a public event.
Mike Brookes and Rosa Casado: performed Europe and USA 2011-current.

the persians : large scale located theatre event, delivering a specific new translation of Aeschylus' text - the oldest extant play in western drama - within the replica village of the FIBUA training site (Fiighting In Built Up Areas) deep in the MoD range on the Brecon Beacons of Wales. Commissioned for the inaugural season of National Theatre Wales.
Mike Brookes, Mike Pearson, National Threatre Wales : commissioned and performed SENTA, Sennybridge, Wales 2010.

something happening nearby : perfomance event, drawing live video and audio feeds from events happening simultaniously within isolated rooms of the same building, reconstructing and immediate re-presentating the resulting material, in real time, within the meeting place of a develping public event.
Mike Brookes, Mike Pearson and Rosa Casado : commissioned and performed Exeter, UK 2009

welsh landscapes : perfomance work, readdressing material from the theatre work 'Patagonia' within the meeting place of a located ensamble public reading, including one performer via mobile phone link from the Patagonian site narrated within the text.
Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson [Pearson/Brookes] : commissioned and performed Cardiff, Wales 2009

the perfect human [and the things we do] : context specific performance and installation work created with 20-30 self-selecting participants from the locale, and taking its initial structure from the script of the 1967 film 'the perfect human' by Jorgen Leth. Participants demonstrate their response to questions about their daily behaviour, constructing a reflective social meeting place, and reframing notions of human perfection within the fragility and imperfection of the developing structure.
Mike Brookes and Rosa Casado: commissioned and performed Italy, Spain, Germany 2008-current.

some things happen all at once : performance and durational object work, reflecting on social behaviour and sustainability, and built around the construction and decay of a model forest made entirely of ice - conprising 200 individual ice trees, and including a model village of 40 individual ice houses and a single ice church - this object work covering an area 3.5m in diameter, and being placed directly onto the floor of an open public space. Heat generated by the presence and activity of any spectators hastens the decay of the ice, while attempts can be made to sustain the model using an improvised cooling system powered by bicycles. Additional cycles can be used to generate the power needed to animate other aspects of the work.
Mike Brookes and Rosa Casado : performed Europe 2007-current.

saints : context specific performance work gathering a crowd of fifteen collaborators, past and present, whose collective professional contribution to performance practice in Wales has spanned thirty years. The work combined performance fragments donated, and performed, by those collaborators - and took the form of an ensemble performance event, performed live and acustically, without any technical infrastructure, amongst a promenade audience, within a open stripped out studio space..
Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson [Pearson/Brookes] : commissioned and performed Cardiff, Wales 2005

paradise 2 [the incessant sound of a falling tree] : a performance and object work reflecting on tourism and migration - and marking the first work within the long term collaboration between Mike Brookes and Rosa Casado. The resulting event is defined by the placing of a model island made entirely of chocolate, and the completion of three main actions: [1] to define, in a pseudo scientific way, some concepts relating to trade and human displacement; [2] to draw the solar system in order to contextualise the journeys and locations described; [3] to eat all the trees on the island.
Mike Brookes and Rosa Casado : performed Europe, Australia, New Zealand, USA 2005-current.

who are you looking at ? : performance event, realised over three nights in February 2004, and built on material produced in collaboration with five young female performers - each documenting 3mins within a particular public city centre location, on the same evening - producing footage of each location from three simultaneous and expanding points of view: [1] from a hidden camera on the performer themselves; [2] from a shadowing camera recording their movements; and [3] a wider locating shot taken from within a tracking car. Performed by Brookes, Pearson and Thomas - working around a large central table, arranged with all the necessary equipment and material - the resulting video fragments were layered with live texts and vocal recordings of the performers in conversation, live within the room of the developing public event.
Mike Brookes, Mike Pearson and Ed Thomas : commissioned and performed Cardiff, Wales 2004.

there's someone in the house : perfomance event, built from video and polaroid documentation of otherwise unseen events unfolding within the same building - 'over there, just now' - the documentation being imediately delivered to, and re-animated, within the closed room of a developing public event.
Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson [Pearson/Brookes] : commissioned and performed Exeter, UK 2004

rain dogs : performance event, marking the first public manifestation of a periodic collaboration between Mike Brookes, Mike Pearson and writer/director Ed Thomas. Drawing on strategies developed across their recent works Brookes and Pearson re-examined their generation and reading of narrative - both off and onto the city - combining specific threads of location video, narrative text, police cctv footage and documentation. Performed by Brookes, Pearson and Thomas - layering live material, including thirty 1min texts delivered live by their authors, against the performed texts and actions of ten male actors present only on film.
Mike Brookes, Mike Pearson and Ed Thomas : commissioned and performed Cardiff, Wales 2002

polis : large scale three hour performance event, incorporating twenty-five performance fragments, realised in five phases of five simultaneous acts, across the centre of a city - and the documentary traces of these acts produced by spectators delivered to the encounter of each isolated fragment by guided taxi. Realised by a ensemble of twenty - five within the room of the installation [including Brookes and Pearson], five performers journeying across the city, five taxis, and five guides - the event and 'forum' of the work being built through the structured reconstruction and immediate re-presentation of documentation material live within the room of the developing installation.
Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson [Pearson/Brookes]: commissioned and performed Cardiff, Wales 2001.

carrying Lyn : on Saturday June 2nd 2001 - the day of the Wales-Poland soccer international - Mike Brookes, Mike Pearson, John Rowley, Richard Morgan, Paul Jeff carried disabled performer Lyn Levett across the centre of the city of Cardiff. Twice. From 8pm, for an audience in Chapter's studio, Mike Brookes simultaneously constructed and presented possible versions of both journeys, in real time, from the available documentation. Mixing video and audio recordings from the first Journey with footage from the second couriered to him directly from the street.
Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson [Pearson/Brookes]: commissioned and performed Cardiff, Wales 2001.

like a pelican in the wilderness : ensamble performance work, proposing the evocation of a loaded - and absent - artistic act, through structured manipulation of the available documentation. Video and sound recordings of the absent event being layered and mixed with statements of intent and description. Within a small darkened room containing four microphones, two video projections and an array of sound and playback equipment, the informal gathering of spectators and performers attempted to generate and experience both the meaning and intention of an absent incident, through the direct presentation of selected traces, opinions, and personal explanations - of what had, would, and could have happened.
Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson [Pearson/Brookes] : commissioned and performed Aberystwyth, Wales 2000.

works of progess : ensemble performance work, developed live amongst an informally gathered audience, across three consequential attemps to deliver the same material, performed 'back to back,' as a single event. With aural and visual details from each attempt being visibled sampled and recorded, and instantly reintroducd as the foundation and impetus for each subsequant, and increasingly elaborated, attempt - and utimately engaging an emsamble of eight performers and members of the audience.
Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson [Pearso/Brookes] : performed UK and Germany 1999.

body of evidence : performance intervention. At 10.00pm on Friday 2nd October 1998 Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson drove a red 1986 3-series BMW into a vacant car park off James Street in the Butetown area of Cardiff Docks, and stepped out of the car. W earing a discrete headset microphone Pearson delivered the text of a frank personal examination of the facts and evidence surrounding the brutal murder of Lynette White, a young prostitute, in her James Street flat on Valentine's Day 1988. The case remaining officially unsolved. The text made specifically audible by Brookes, to the previously gathered audience, as they crowded around the open car, via a short range radio link through the car's powerful hi-fi. The murder scene, police station, and other locations directly relevant to the murder and subsequent investigation, all lay within two hundred yards of the performance site. On completion of the text Brookes and Pearson re-entered the car and drove away, leaving the audience to disperse, and the site physically unchanged.
Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson [Pearson/Brookes] : commissioned and performed Cardiff, Wales 1998.

the man who ate his boots : performance and installation work, proposing a re-examination of issues arising within the act of 'the first five miles', and their presentation within a studio context. Mike Pearson performed a four part monologue among an informally gathering of spectators, contained within a space defined and lit simply by four small back-projection screens. The screens detailed the route of their previous five mile journey through Mike Brookes' photographic documentation of the surrounding landscape at fifth of a mile intervals. The aural architecture that Brookes constructed filled the studio with a driving sound work that made it impossible to engage acoustically with the spoken text of Pearsons' performance, yet simultaeniosly enabled the delivery of Pearson's voice directly to each spectator individually via short range radio link and the individual headsets of an infra red audio loop.
Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson [Pearson/Brookes] : performed UK 1998.

the first five miles : located performance and radio work, realised in collaboration with local inhabitants and land owners, Radio Ceredigion, and BBC Resources. Between 9.00pm and 10.15pm on Sunday 23rd August 1998, Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson walked a specific five mile jouney among peat bog, high pasture and wind-farm turbines of Mynydd Bach above the village of Trefenter in West Wales, carrying portable two way radio equipment. Texts voiced by Pearson were combined, via a live satellite link, with pre-recorded material simultaneously broadcast by Radio Ceredigio over a fifty miles in radius from Mynydd Bach. The bilingual stereo broadcast, subtitled 'Rhyfel y Sais Bach [the war of the little Englishman]', exploring the story of Augustus Brackenbury, his purchase of 850 acres of the areas common moorland from the Enclosure Commissioners in 1820, the subsequent enclosure riots, and the frustration by local inhabitants at his repeated attempts to build houses on the land. The work 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 gridlocked in cars - and a wider radio audience of over fifteen thousand.
Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson [Pearson/Brookes] : performed Mynydd Bach, Wales 1998.

dead men's shoes : performance and installation work marking the first major collaboration between Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson; The resulting eighty minute work layered two main elements: [1] Mike Pearson's text and delivery of a monologue exploring Robert Falcon Scott's fateful expedition to the South Pole in 1912, through a specific examination of the role and fate of seaman Edgar Evans; and [2] the place and architecture of Mike Brookes' durational slide work, animated through seven computer-controlled slide projectors across a fifty foot screen, detailing original photographic images from Scott's 'Discovery' and 'Terra Nova' Antarctic expeditions, many of which had rarely before been seen in public.
Mike Brookes and Mike Pearson [Pearson/Brookes] : performed UK and Brazil 1997