Started in June, 2010, Mim’provisation grew out of the personal necessities of mime artists to improvise and challenge themselves and their craft. While contact improvisations, improvisational theatre, and breakdance battles already exist; Mim’provisation fills a gap and breathes fresh light air to the universe of physical expression. On this stage of corporeal improvisation, the intensity of a battle in front of a very critical audience results in poetic construction and unique expression. Rather than virtuosic performance measures, improvisational play focuses more on how the imaginary springs to life.
We are living in a post-modern era of mime where the original modern masters like Etienne Decroux, Marcel Marceau, Jacques Lecoq, and Henryk Tomaszewski have passed away, and where the art of mime has evolved into budding interdisciplinary variations such as mime-dance, clown mime, abstract mime, and physical theatre. Mim’provisation offers an encounter for today’s vast array of artists and their unique forms, personalities, and talent to come together to witness, share and play together. And through this live challenge and dialogue, a more heightened level of beauty and creative surprise blooms.
For the unsuspecting audience, Mim’provisation will awaken the imagination and touch the soul from laughter to amazement. Witnessing some of the best mime artists, they participate in the process of evolution of the contemporary mime that yearns to redefine itself beyond the dominant stereotype of the “white-masked pantomime”.
The event takes place in two parts:
In the first part, a group of selected or “invited” mime artists demonstrate their skills. They are guided by an invited master of ceremony.
In the second part, the public become the actors and are invited to improvise, in duo, trios according to a given theme.