Welcome to the last episode of the top 5 googled questions about mimes series. This is the big one, the ultimate question. Why? The question haunting us every morning. We ask it every day to try to figure out what is the reason behind all the weird stuff happening every day to us.
And after this series I understand that mime art, pantomime and mimes in general are super weird and people need explanation. And you deserve explanation so let me do my best to give you a good one. Let's see the top 5 among the "WHY" questions on google:
1. Why mimes don't talk?
Well here's a contoversial one right from the start. It is true that most of mimes don't talk doing pantomime but as it is with everything in life, there are exceptions to this rule.
So as I said, traditionally mimes don't or even shouldn't talk on stage or while performing. But on the other hand, there is no one forbidding them. It is more of a unwritten rule kind of situation. So a mime can speak but generally won't.
The best possible exeption to this are The Umbilical Brothers from Australia. Two of the most popular mimes worldwide of our time. But are they? If you ask them, they'll tell you they are definitely not mimes and they don't do pantomime at all. But the truth is, that even though they are not really trained in mime art professionally, didn't go to school to learn it except a workshop or few classes, they are very good at mime because of their creativity, hard work and endless imagination. And they talk in their performances a lot.
So think about this when you learn pantomime. There are no boundries, you can talk, you can sing, you can dance, you can play an instrument and all of that while doing mime. So you do you and free your imagination.
2. Why mimes wear stripes?
They don't. But don't worry I won't leave you hanging there.
If you think of a stereotypical mime, yes, you will see a striped shirt, black pants, a barret and a pair of white gloves accompanied with a full white face make up mask.
But why the striped shirt? A very good question that takes me to France and Marcel Marceau again because I believe he and his most famous persona Bip is the one responsible for this stereotype in pantomime that haunts all mimes to this day.
Marcel Marceau was a mime of the big stage. That means he needed to do a lot to enhance his visibility from far away and you know what I mean if you ever visited a big national theatre or opera house and sat in the back, all the way up on the balcony. Or if you attended a gig of a big name band performing on a huge stage and just tried to watch it without the big screens on the sides. Pantomime is all about the body, its poses and its movement in the space. And here we come back to the stripes.
Stripes just make your body more visible, more distinguishable from one coloured background. Movements are more visible. And this is what you need not only ona big stage but even more in the street where you'll see the most striped mimes. Mimes mostly don't speak or make noises so in the theatre you need to be seen but on the street, you need to be different and distinguishable from the mass of people all around so stripes will do the trick.
3. Why is mime important in drama?
4. Why is mime used in drama?
This will be probably one of my favourite questions in the series because, don't even get me started on this topic. Pantomime and mime is hugely underrated for it's importance in drama in general and it is not tought correctly for what it is.
Mime should be the base of every good actor. And I'm not speaking about the invisible wall or walk or pulling a rope. I'm talking about the posture of the body. The acting of emotions, not through words, but through the body in the same way we do it in real world. Before someone informs you they are sad, you should be able to spot it in the way they move and how they hold their body and how they place themselves in the space. You just know, because you see.
So mime is super important in drama as an acting tool but let's talk for a moment about importance of pantomime as a part of drama family of genres because mime art is a self sufficient drama genre. Because of some pantomime subgenres you can find it cathegorized under dance because of its physicality but don't get fooled as the art of mime is definitely a story driven performing art even if the story is super abstract and pantomime follows all the rules of drama arc if it is to be succssesful and entertaining.
So to sum it up, pantomime is important in drama because it is what precedes the words and even movement or expression. It is the sauce, the secret ingredient of great actors. If the actor is any good, they know how to mime.
And also the ever dying artform of mime is very important in drama cathegory as it is a one of a kind predecessor of all drama genres and contemporary mime is the new and fresh version.
5. Why is mime so popular and why is mime called an international art?
It is because everyone can understand a mime all across the world and maybe across the galaxy but that was not tested yet.
It's very simple, let's drop once and for all that "pantomime is this art form so abstract that you just don't understand and can't follow the story" narrative that is quite common. This is just a fear, a prejudice or a bad experience which I'm not trying to deny if you had one because I had plenty of those.
If you didn't get what was the mime trying to show you, they were either a bad mime or the idea, the story was so overcomplicated that you just didn't stand a chance to get it without some more information. There is also a possibility that your imagination doesn't work
properly and I don't mean it in any bad way. It is unfortunately very common in our current world where everything is imagined for you and only certain music, books or mime is actually working with your own imagination but a lot of adults and even children just don't interact much with those art forms and so the imagination shrinks and you need to work on it to get it working again.
But I got a bit sidetracked there from the original question so let's get back. Contemporary mime is covering contemporary problems, questions and life situations of our current lives. It doesn't use too much of stylisation so it doesn't get out of touch with reality. And this is why it is popular and why mime is called an international art. Because you don't have to use words, you use the language of the body which has it's differencies around the world but it's mostly the same in our global society. And if you remember from the other mimeblogs I wrote, in the Roman Empire, mimes were entertainers inside the empire but they were translators outside. They were the most skilled people in trying to understand the new and weird cultures encountered by the Romans.
So mime is the only performing art that can bring the same ideas, emotions and understanding anywhere in the world and it is one of its many superpowers.
I hope all your "WHY" questions were answered here.
If you have still more questions don't hesitate to drop by my website www.contemporarymime.com or contact me @contemporarymime on any social media and ask me more or get an online class of mime with a glass of wine.
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