ABSTRACT
Brith Gof was established in Aberystwyth, Wales, in 1981 by Mike Pearson and Lis Hughes Jones, following their departure from Cardiff Laboratory Theatre. From 1981 to 1988, the company purposefully operated outside of the prevailing theatrical orthodoxies, creating their own circumstances for performance and relating their work to specific locations and occasions in West Wales. In these circumstances, their work became increasingly, and overtly, political, drawing on aspects of Welsh history and addressing experiences of cultural and economic decline and disintegration. In 1988, the company collaborated with the industrial percussionists Test Dept, to create Goddodin, a large-scale site-specific performance presented in the disused Rover car factory in Cardiff’s docklands. Since then they have completed two more large-scale site-specific pieces. Pax, of 1991-1992, based on a descent of angels and concerned with the environmental plight of the planet, was presented at St. David’s Hall, Cardiff, the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Glasgow and in the British Rail Station in Aberystwyth. More recently Haearn, meaning ‘iron’, was conceived both as a live work and a television record, and performed at the Old British Coal Works in Tredegar, Wales, in 1993. Brith Gof’s work extends across large-scale, site-specific performances, touring theatre performances, installation, video, television, and music, and the company is currently involved in several publication projects. Mike Pearson and Cliff McLucas are Joint Artistic Directors of the company. This interview was recorded at Brith Gof’s offices at Chapter Arts, Cardiff, in January 1994. The short texts and statements which punctuate this interview are drawn from ‘The Host and The Ghost: Brith Gof’s Site-Specific Works’, 60 interleaved texts by Mike Pearson and Cliff McLucas concerning the company’s approaches to site-specific performance. These extracts are reproduced by permission of the authors.
