Michael Peterson

Michael Peterson joined the UW faculty in 2000. He is a performance studies scholar, a performance artist, and a teacher. Michael teaches performance studies, dramatic literature, feminist theatre, and other subjects both in the ITS program and at the undergraduate level, as well as experimental production and performance art. Peterson’s research includes a critical study of Straight White Male Performance Art Monologues (Mississippi UP). work on performance culture in Las Vegas, and on animals, food, and objects in performance. His newest research is about performance in and about torture and other forms of cruelty. He has published articles in Performance Research, TDR, Theatre Annual, and numerous anthologies.

Michael makes performance works both individually and as part of the collaborative Spatula&Barcode, which specializes in audience-specific relational performance. Since 2008, Spatula&Barcode has produced independent and commissioned works in China, Uruguay, Brazil, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Morocco, Croatia, around the U.S., and for the 2013 Wisconsin Triennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Michael’s 2013 project “Measures of the Lake” was funded by a Madison BLINK! grant and is part of a series on the science and culture of Madison lakes. His newest “solo” work is a barter-based performance that asks how much “acting” can be accomplished by voluntary participants.

Michael competed his PhD at Wisconsin in 1993 and earned his BFA in acting from Ohio University.