Help us get to over 8,748 articles in 2024.

If you know of a magician not listed in MagicPedia, start a New Biography for them. Contact us at magicpediahelp@gmail.com

Mime artist

From Magicpedia, the free online encyclopedia for magicians by magicians.
Jump to: navigation, search

A mime artist (from Greek "μίμος"—mimos, "imitator, actor") is someone who uses mime as a theatrical medium or as a performance art, involving the acting out a story through body motions, without use of speech (miming).

In earlier times, in English, such a performer would typically be referred to as a mummer. The performance of pantomime originates at its earliest in Ancient Greece; the name is taken from a single masked dancer called Pantomimus, although performances were not necessarily silent. In Medieval Europe, early forms of mime such as mummer plays and later dumbshows evolved. In early nineteenth century Paris, Jean-Gaspard Deburau solidified the many attributes that we have come to know in modern times—the silent figure in whiteface.

Jacques Copeau, strongly influenced by Commedia dell'arte and Japanese Noh theatre, used masks in the training of his actors. Étienne Decroux, a pupil of his, was highly influenced by this and started exploring and developing the possibilities of mime and developed corporeal mime into a highly sculptural form, taking it outside of the realms of naturalism. Jacques Lecoq contributed significantly to the development of mime and physical theatre with his training methods.

Notable magicians who have studied or perform mime are: Teller, Jeff McBride, Doug Henning, and Tina Lenert.

References

Wikipedia-logo.png This page incorporated content from Mime artist,

a page hosted on Wikipedia. Please consult the history of the original page to see a list of its authors. Therefor, this article is also available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License