Seminar Blogs
“Cardiff 1919 Riots Redrawn: Morphing Newspapers into Lively Knowledge” – Eleonora Stacchioti
In the last session organized by the research group Transmission in Motion, we had the pleasure to delve into the work of Mike Pearson, Professor in Performance Studies at Aberystwyth University and brilliant theatre maker. He presented Cardiff 1919, Riots Redrawn, a graphic novel by artist Kyle Legall, which results to be a narrative depiction…
Read more“Retraced, Redrawn, Retold” – Floor Mijland
With his steady narration, Mike Pearson (Professor Emeritus of Performance Studies at Aberystwyth University) transports us back in time, to the streets of Cardiff in June 1919. Accompanied by images of street corners, houses, men, families, we are emerged in the mayhem that took place over the course of four days and nights. We hear…
Read more“Cultural Forgetfulness” – Daniël Everts
In my recent academic endeavors, I have been focussing on memory on a cultural level. Primarily, I have been interested in the way some memories are given precedence over other memories in digital social media. However, when performance studies scholar Mike Pearson of Aberystwyth University spoke of his contribution in re-creating a particularly dark moment…
Read more“Expanding and Enacting Historiographies” – Hannah Harder
A professor of performance studies, Mike Pearson developed the theater piece Wild Scenes at Cardiff in 2019, a dynamic performance of a local history. This project brings the audience through the four days of the Cardiff race riots, describing the broad movements of the events and the actors involved. Certainly a weighty task, Pearson describes…
Read more“Performing the Forgotten Knowledge Through Digital Means” – Justina Jakubiec
The story of the riots that took place in Cardiff in 1919 leaves a lot to be desired. However cruel and prejudiced the affairs were, a recreation of the story turns out to be possible only on the basis of reports in local newspapers from that time. An aim to create a novel that would,…
Read more“What Do We Need History For?” – Hymke Theunissen
On the 16th of December, I was not sitting in my living room and watching my laptop screen. I was not aware of the time or what I was going to make for dinner. Mentally, I was walking somewhere in Cardiff in 1919. I was surrounded by characters of a story formed by the voice…
Read more“In Your Mind’s Eye: From Mike Pearson’s Retraced and Redrawn to True-Crime Podcasts” – Naomi Tidball
“The strands were very thin, this is partly due to date (100yrs ago), so the circumstances were difficult. The local historian of the town—who were victims of this riot—they have a very developed account of how the rioters came into the house. It is difficult to get the particulars of the accounts.” (Pearson 2020) From…
Read more“Live-tweeting the Cardiff Riots of 1919” – Polyniki Katrantsioti
An important factor concerning the work of Kyle Legall, Cardiff 1919: Riots Redrawn is that they were never extensively covered in history, despite the fact that they had a detrimental effect on the Welsh population. To further reinforce this lack of historical appreciation comes the fact that the Cardiff Riots are not taught in schools,…
Read more“Cardiff 1919: Reconstructing Memory” – Soyun Jang
Mike Pearson, Professor Emeritus of Performance Studies at Aberystwyth University, has been working with National Theatre Wales and a number of artists to record the race riot that startled Cardiff for four days and night in mid-June 1919 – an event described as a “violent mayhem that left three dead, many in hospital, and buildings…
Read more“Branching Storytelling and Speculative Realism” – Liang Yue
After watching the registration of Estado Vegetal, the voice of the plant still lingered in my head. The “I can’t move” expression and the resonant voice subtly contrasts the plant’s two properties: still and kinetic. Manuela Infante, the scriptwriter and director of this show, shared her exploration of branching storytelling strategy and speculative realism during…
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