A mime artist is someone who uses mime as a theatrical
medium or as a performance art, involving miming, or the acting out a story
through body motions, without use of speech. 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.
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.
The striped sailors shirt and black beret are
traditionally standard attributes to the mime artist.
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