“A History of Mime in Ann Arbor” with performances by Michael Lee will be presented at the Downtown Ann Arbor District Library on December 22 from 2-3:30 p.m. There will be a series of short performances and interviews with Michael Lee and special guests Perry Perrault and O.J. Anderson.
“It’s a performance, and I’m going to be doing about six or seven pieces, which normally would be about an hour but interspersed between some sort of an interview,” Lee said.
Mimes can speak
Lee also said it is a popular misconception that mimes never speak, but rather, the emphasis is on physical movement and expression.
“Mime does not mean silent,” Lee said. “…Physical activating in a nutshell…sometimes when people say something like, ‘you’re a mime you can’t talk’ I say, well a dancer doesn’t talk and a sculptor doesn’t talk and a painter doesn’t talk, and so most art forms don’t speak…like a painter uses paint and a canvas and a mime uses his or her body and space…if we compare it to dance, dance is usually an esthetic art form, and mime is a dramatic art form of the body.”
According to Lee, the disciplines of ballet and mime are similar in the positions that the body takes.
“There’s five foot positions in ballet, and there are eight foot positions in mime,” Lee said. “So we have a whole vocabulary based in a couple of different routes where it’s not like we are trying not to talk,” Lee said.” That’s sort of part of the myth. And the stereotype is it’s an easy thing to say mimes are silent, or mimes don’t talk, but we don’t say that about dancers.”
Lee added that there is a lot of communication going on with the body and it is not just a person in a striped shirt trapped in a box.
Mime in Ann Arbor
According to Lee, the history of mime in Ann Arbor connects with the University of Michigan and Huron High School in the late 1960s and 1970s. Marcel Marceau from Paris came as a guest teacher.
“There were three or four people that were internal,” said Lee. “And I guess we’re kind of going back to maybe the late 60s at this point. And I can’t exactly say why, why Ann Arbor or why this happened. But a few really serendipitous things happened, like Marcel Marceau coming, he was recognizable. There was some sort of a French celebration…”
Lee said he started studying mime in 1982, so has been doing mime for about 42 years now.
“It’s pure education and entertainment,” said Lee. “…it’s sorta like, why would somebody go see the Beatles? I don’t mean to compare myself to that kind of greatness. But there’s a certain number of people that remember the heyday, remember Marcel coming…a lot of people will remember this history.”
Historical context
The broader world history of mime is important as well. Lee shared a historical fact from Ancient Greece.
“3,000 or 4,000 years ago, they had what they called Pantomimes, and that’s where physical actors acted out the speaking actors,” Lee said. “You’ve probably seen the comedy and tragedy masks.”
Those classical masks are actual mime facial expressions encapsulated in the frozen moment.
According to Lee, the Greeks held the masks in front of the actor’s face. They were much bigger than the regular faces, so people could see them in a large venue.
“People sitting in an amphitheater three or four thousand years ago were sitting up on a hillside, and there was no electric light, and so they were projecting, using their bodies and these masks to project what the actors were doing,” Lee said. “And that is kind of the root of pantomime.”
The word “mime” is also connected to the Greek word “mimos,” which means “Imitator, actor, or buffoon.” Modern mime has French roots, according to Lee.
“What we consider now as modern mime, goes back to a man named Étienne Decroux, a Frenchman who was Marcel Marceau’s teacher. He is considered the father of modern mime,” Lee said.
Commedia dell’arte is also a related influence. It is a form of improvisational theater that originated in Italy during the 16th century, with a flexible number of character groups organized into archetypes.
“There’s a lot of improvisation, but there’s about eight or ten characters, they use masks and exaggerate things,” said Lee. “El Capitan, there’s Harlequino, Pedrolino, they all have like these stock emotional archetypes…it’s very rich and physical…and it’s usually very, very verbal also…”
The main characters of Comedia Dell’Arte are Arlecchino, Colubina, Il Dottore, Pantalone, Il Capitano, and the young lovers Leliio and Isabella. Arlecchino is best known as Harlequin, the most famous Commedia character. There are many other characters as well.
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Lee added that there are examples of mime in pop culture. Michael Jackson’s “Moonwalk” is a mime technique, and Madonna’s “Vogue” gestures and positions can also be construed as a language of mime and dance.
In closing, Lee said to put aside preconceived notions of assuming it is only silent,
“Someone would be pleasantly surprised if they set aside their stereotypical ideas of what mime is,” Lee said. “That would be something that, if I was speaking to every person, invite them to come with an open mind.”
The AADL performance is free and open to the public. The event is a chance to experience a live local performance by seasoned artists who blend entertainment with a deep dive into the history and techniques of mime.
Donna Marie Iadipaolo is a writer, journalist, and State of Michigan certified teacher, since 1990. She has written for national publications like The Village Voice, Ear Magazine of New Music, Insurance & Technology, and TheStreet.
She is now writing locally for many publications, including Current Magazine, Ann Arbor Family, and the Ann Arbor Independent. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she graduated with an honors bachelor’s degree and three teacher certificate majors: mathematics, social sciences, English. She also earned three graduate degrees in Master of Science, Master of Arts, and Education Specialist Degree.
