Janek Alexander, Geoff Moore & Mike Pearson

18 Oct 2007, 6pm (as part of / fel rhan o EXPERIMENTICA 2007)
Space Workshop, Cardiff School of Art and Design

Photo: Phil Babot

What is the relationship between performance art and experimental theatre? It has often been claimed that whilst in North America performance art grew out of painting and sculpture, in Britain artists aligned themselves more closely with alternative theatre and its radical traditions. In Wales, the borders between experimental theatre and performance art have indeed always been fluid. Here theatre artists have often embraced artistic strategies that are familiar from performance art, such as site-specificity, task-based physical action, the use of duration and a greater attention to the audience.

Photo: Chapter in the 1980s. © Chapter.

Three of the most important Wales-based experimental theatre artists of the last few decades, Janek Alexander, Geoff Moore and Mike Pearson, were in conversation about their work, Cardiff's performance scene in the 1970s and 1980s and their involvement in Chapter Arts Centre.

Janek Alexander worked as a performer and director with companies such as Diamond Age, before becoming theatre programmer for Chapter. He is now the Arts Centre's director. Geoff Moore is artistic director of Moving Being, one of the first multimedia and interdisciplinary performance groups in the UK. Mike Pearson was a founding member of Cardiff Laboratory Theatre in the 1970s and Brith Gof in the 1980s and still makes performance work with Pearson/ Brookes.

With the support of Chapter.