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Mime artist

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Image:Mime Artist.jpg
For other uses, see Mime (disambiguation)

A mime artist is someone who uses mime as a theatrical medium or as a performance art. In earlier times, in English, such a performer was referred to as a mummer. Miming is to be distinguished from silent comedy, in which the artist is a seamless character in a film or sketch.

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[edit] Mimes in Ancient Greece and Rome

Mime supposedly began in the Theater of Dionysus in Athens, perhaps as far back as the third century B.C.E. These mimes were not entirely silent, as we think of mimes today, but the spoken element was minimized. There was usually a chorus, typical of Greek theatre of the time. Greek mime plays were often tragedies that had a moral lesson. Stories frequently included fighting, adultery, and various vices. Early mime artists in Greece were called phylakes and included women as well as men. Well-known authors of mimes include Decimus Laberius, Epicharmus, Sophron, Publilius Syrus and Herodas. [1].

Like actors and actresses of today, a mime's fame could bring them the attention of the rich and powerful. The Emperor Justinian married Theodora, a former mimus (mima?)

By the time of the fall of Rome, mimes were performing at banquets and courts all over Europe. Roman mime artists were called mimus or saltator, but the word "mime" by then was often used as a catch-all term for any sort of short dramatic or comedic acted entertainment, sometimes expanding to include sword swallowers and jugglers. Roman mime was called fibula riciniata and was a mix of farce sketch, dancing, singing and acrobatics. Stock characters evolved (stupid husband, greedy pig, foolish old man, devious woman, etc). These developed a non-silent, satirical, and often political comedy that evolved into such theatre genres as the Italian Commedia dell'arte, the dumb show, Masque, and British pantomime. The most well known exponents of these classical roots at the beginning of the twentieth century of these traditions are the Italian couple Dario Fo and Franca Rame and the San Francisco Mime Troupe in America.

[edit] Modern Mime

Today, in the theatrical world, there are two types of mimes. The first one has grown from studies of people like Etienne Decroux, often called the "father of modern mime", or Jacques Lecoq. Their aim is not to replace words with gesture, but to express with the body something complementary, something the text does not express. "Making the invisible visible" using the body to express thoughts, emotions, metaphores, using the full range of movement allowed by the human body and not just an exaggerated version of everyday gesture. Decroux called this art form "corporeal mime".

Henryk Tomaszewski began developing an equally modern mime theatre in Poland after World War II. Tomazewski's mime theatre developed largely independently of both the innovations of either Decroux or Lecoq, and popular theatre forms of the commedia dell'arte and street performance.

What united these modern schools is that they were all concerned with creating a new type of theatre: either mime as an independent discipline, not subsumed as part of an actor's or dancer's craft, or mime as part of an avant-garde experimental theatre.

Since the 1980s, many mimes trained in the "modern" tradition of Decroux' corporeal mime have developed work called "Post-modern mime". Post-modern mime recognizes mime as an independent theatrical discipline, but incorporates elements from other disciplines, and media, such as puppetry, spoken word, text, and video.

Image:Pantomime-Pablo.jpg A more traditional branch of mime, is often called pantomime, and characterized by full-body physical expressions, body language and gesture, often with little or no theatrical props. Pantomime can be said to be an older pre-modern style. These mime routines frequently involve illusions of interaction with imaginary objects. It is often, but not always, done in white face and the movements and expressions are heightened for greater effect. In this sense, pantomime can be seen as a specialization within mime. Amongst Marcel Marceau's major contributions to the art of mime was to combine this older pantomime style with the corporeal mime techniques developed by his master, Decroux.

Well-known pantomime illusions include:

  • Walls: the mime opens their hand and pretends to touch (with their open palm) a flat wall. This motion includes a sudden stop at the end so as to indicate exactly where the wall is, much as people do when they actually slap a wall.
  • Rope: The mime grabs an invisible rope and pretends to pull the rope, sometimes with difficulty, indicating the rope is attached to something big or heavy.
  • Leaning: The mime creates the appearance of leaning against a wall, mantle, bar, pedestal or other such object.
  • Trapped in a box: The mime pretends to be in an invisible box that they cannot get out of.

Pantomime commonly appears as street performance. Amateur mime artists often use a very limited number of routines from Marceau's repertoire such as 'walking against the wind', 'peeling a banana', and especially 'trapped in a box' often missing that Marceau always uses these routines to tell a story or sketch a theme or character, or that Marceau's work benefits from a technique learnt from Decroux. This lack of creativity and technique amongst Marceau's imitators has created a negative stereotype of mimes.

Movement theatre is a related branch of theatre which merges elements of mime with that of modern dance.

[edit] Mime in Film

Prior to the work of Étienne Decroux there was no major treatise on the art of mime, and so any recreation of mime as performed prior to the twentieth century is largely conjecture, based on interpretation of diverse sources. However, the twentieth century also brought a new medium into widespread usage: the motion picture.

The restrictions of early motion picture technology meant that stories had to be told with minimal dialogue which was largely restricted to intertitles. This often demanded a highly stylized form of physical acting largely derived from the stage. Thus, mime plays an important role in films prior to the talkies. The mimetic style of film acting was used to great effect in German Expressionism film.

Silent film comedians like Charles Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton learned the craft of mime in the theatre but through film had a profound influence on mimes who work in live theatre even decades after their death. Indeed, Chaplin may be the best documented mime in history.

The famous French comedian, writer and director Jacques Tati achieved his initial popularity working as a mime, and indeed his later films had only minimal dialogue, relying instead on many subtle expertly choreographed visual gags. Tati, like Chaplin before him, would mime out the movements of every single character in his films and ask his actors to repeat them.

Mimes have often appeared in science fiction and fantasy films. The physical training of the mime when combined with a well designed costume can result in a fantastic, yet believable creature. In this regard, the distinction between mime and puppeteer has become blurred.

More recent developments in computer animation such as motion capture or mocap technology allow for actors' movements to be used in creating animated characters. As a consequence, some mimes are beginning to work with animators in creating characters.

Mimes have also been portrayed in film, most notably in Les Enfants du Paradis, which featured both Jean-Louis Barrault in the role of Jean-Gaspard Deburau and Decroux as his father. However, when mimes are portrayed in film, it is just as common for filmmakers to have actors with little mime training to perform a stereotype of a mime as it is for a skilled artist to either perform or choreograph the performance on screen.

[edit] Mime in popular culture

  • In the popular imagination, mimes are thought of as having a uniform costume that includes black and white horizontal striped clothes, a vest, a formal black top hat or beret, formal white gloves (to highlight the motions of the hands), and white face paint (similar to that used by a clown), with some accents in black. However, mimes, like other theater artists use a diversity of costuming ideas. This uniform has become so iconic that many experienced artists explicitly reject it.
  • Some of the moves in breakdancing, such as the moonwalk, have been borrowed from mime.
  • While it is often thought that playing the party game of charades amounts to mime, charades is a guessing game, while mime artists seek a certain theatrical clarity.
  • In the 1989 Batman film, The Joker's cronies in one scene are dressed in stereotypical mime costume. They are seen engaged in a simplistic pantomime of mechanical men.
  • In 2003 Canadian comedy group Very Tasteful created the film Pantomimus, which aired nationally on CBC Television.
  • Bobcat Goldthwaite's movie Shakes The Clown dealt with the alleged rivalry/hostility between mimes and clowns. This antipathy is largely mythical. Clowning schools have long considered mime essential to clown training. In addition, clowns and mimes often rever many of the same artists and traditions as sources of inspiration.
  • Michael Jackson was good friends with well-known mime artist Marcel Marceau and used pantomime regularly in his concert performances; in 1995, Jackson and Marceau jointly choreographed a concert for HBO, but the project never got past the rehearsal stage.
  • Motion pictures such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, in which live actors interact with animated cartoons, require the actors to practice mime skills in order to convincingly push or pull an imaginary object or character that will be added to the film later.
  • On the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Hush", the Gentlemen were all played by mime artists.
  • In a 1976 episode of The Goodies (TV series) entitled "Daylight Robbery of the Orient Express", the trio use whiteface and perform mime routines in the French 'Le Boring' contest.
  • In his television series, disc jockey and comedian Kenny Everett often dressed as a whitefaced mime similar to Marceau's Bip The Clown, and performed routines based on Marceau's work.
  • In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, mime artists are banned in the city of Ankh-Morpork. Any found operating are hung upside down in a scorpion pit along with a sign saying "Learn the Words".
  • Mr. Mime and Mime Jr. are characters from the Pokémon franchise. The latter uses mimicry while the former uses pantomime illusions.
  • Tik and Tok were a mime/music duo who created a form of movement called "Robotics"in the early 1980s.They appeared on a great many TV shows at that time, including The Kenny Everett Show and The Royal Variety Performance in 1983.As a result of their mime skills they landed featured roles in Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi.
  • In an episode of American Dragon: Jake Long titled "A Befuddled Mind" Spud performs mime movements in front of students at Jake's school
  • In an episode of Designing Women, Julia gets placed on a jury with a mime, much to the dismay of Suzanne.
  • In the episode of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, "A Prom Story", when the circus comes a member is a Maurice the mime who has kept silence for 30 years. Cody tries to be a mime.
  • An episode of Xiaolin Showdown featured an "evil" mime, who had "real" mime powers; i.e. the ability to move and create unseen objects, such as trapping others in a box.

[edit] Well known mime artists/movement theatre artists

[edit] Trivia

  • David Bowie studied mime with Lindsay Kemp in 1967 to add another element to his performances.
  • Mimes have long been the sworn enemies of so-called "Blackface Minstrels" and there is still much rivalry between them when it comes to impromtu street performances.[citation needed] (Note that the existence of this antipathy is disputed by professional mimes, essentially because the blackface minstrel genre has been largely extinct in American theatre for generations. The origin of this rumor may be rooted in the clown act of Footit and Chocolat Footit was an English clown who wore whiteface and Chocolat was a Cuban clown of African ancestry.)

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Information

  • Physical Theatre Live Journal A community containing information of Physical Theatre [and everything similar and connecting to it], Physical Theatre performers, companies, books, schools, reviews, tour information, discussions, [you don't have to have a Live Journal to read or comment].

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