We wanted to hightlight the question of what mime is and how it informs the artistics practises of all the invited artists. We asked them the following questions:
– What is mime to you/Why are mime ’methods’ important in your practice?
– How do you view mime as distinct from ’theatre’ (if, indeed, you see any distinction)?

Lena Stefenson

If you are looking for a definition of what mime can be you can find many. Mime can be seen as an opportunity to work with scenic enhancement, with movements that enhance or change the expression of everyday life. The physical language of a mime-actor is based on conscious choice and physical accuracy. Mime can also be defined as visible and embodied energy at the intersection of the thinking and the movement of an actor. What an actor knows and thinks is visible throughout the body, when one chooses.
Mime can also be seen as a creative tool that can be used to understand both the construction of a performance and the role-character. What an actor learns from studying different mime techniques is an attitude to one’s own body, to the work of the co-actors and to the rhythm and tempo in a play.

Furthermore, mime can be seen as a craft of varying origins in the various historical techniques. This craft can be used for completely modern stage forms or for an actor’s individual work. The work of an individual actor in a performance can be mime. The relationship between mime and text is a completely free story for me. There can be sounds and there can be words. Or be quiet.’

Ana Stanišić & Veronica Bedecs

Mime for us is a universal language which allows the mime actor to combine movement with other performative elements in complete harmony. Mime also allows people talking different languages to have a common and unifying experience. We think that is important. A mime performance can be played anywhere in the world, no need for subtitles.
For the performance OH SNAP mime is everything. This play shows how one can use mime to create worlds and characters by only using bodies, light and sound, the stage is totally empty.
– Ana Stanisic

I would phrase it like this: Mime is theatre. Mime as a performative art is as old as ancient Greece. People have always and will always use their bodies to tell stories, it is the development and the usage of the different mime techniques that’s quite interesting.
– Veronica Bedecs, Pantomimteatern

Iraqi Bodies

We firmly hold to the conception of all arts being a mime. To make poetry is to mime. This means that creating a line of movement is equivalent to writing a line of words.

Mime for us is thus translated as a state of mimesis in which an aspect of reality is embodied. The material manifestation that embodiment might take can equally come from the body, the voice or even through mediums that are not directly related to the body such as poetry and music. In the resonance of mimesis we find the fusion of elements that were once considered as an integral unity of theatre which, over the past three millenniums, have drifted apart as separate ‘disciplines’ such as theatre, dance, mime, circus and music.

Jakop Ahlbom

‘What is mime?’ is a haunting question, which is sneaking up on you again and again wherever you go, without really showing its face. A lot of people have tried to unmask it, but never really succeeded as it tends to come back all the time.

In general, I think that the development of theatrical expression has changed a lot over the past decades.
Before there were clearly separated forms: dance, theater, music, circus and opera. Slowly it all started to merge together, becoming one expressive medium that I call ‘Theatre’. Like Performance Art combined visual arts and theatre, mime combines dance and theatre. And the stage is not only limited to the traditional theater anymore, we can use any location as stage for theatrical expression. Nowadays it’s all mixed up, in dance productions people use their voices talking, and during a theatre play we see dancers. We use the form, technique and method that can best express what we want to tell and evoke the right emotional impact. I like that, and it’s the way I work.

I went to the Mime school in Amsterdam. This school is part of the Dutch mime tradition, which based itself on Etienne Ducroux as the basic technique but then mainly focused on creating own ideas and finding ways to express them through physical action using the space around you and everything within that space.

I find it very difficult to say what ‘mime’ is. There are also so many different ways people use it and think about it. From my point of view mime is about working from the body and movement to emotional expression, which for me is more intuitive, as language tend to be more intellectual. My working method starts with a theme or situation, then I work this out visually and physically using any form or discipline that I find suitable for what I want to create.

Spoken movement

Mime is knowing how to convey a story or message to an audience through movement and expression. I think it’s important for our practise because it can say a million different things, but the interpretation will always lay in the eyes of the beholder. Spoken Movement’s aim is to convey storytelling through movement and feeling and we always want to hear the responses from our audiences as it adds richness to the work.

Helene Berg

For me mime is a major approach in exploring the field of communication between movement and interpretation. In animation, timing are essential, and mime is an explorative method in translating intentions and emotions into physical action.