A mime artist, or simply a mime, is a performer who acts or entertains through body motion without speech, using mime as a theatrical medium or a performance art in its own right.
Facts
MediumThe performer's own body: gesture, posture and facial expression used to act or entertain without speech. 1 Signature TechniqueCorporeal mime, the highly sculptural, physical technique Etienne Decroux developed out of his training under Jacques Copeau. 1 Place of OriginAncient Greece, where the earliest recorded mime performance is traced to a masked dancer called Pantomimus. 1 Notable ExampleMarcel Marceau's silent stage character Bip, the most famous mime performance of the twentieth century. 1 Connections
Associated With
Puppetry, Art Forms Puppetry and mime are kindred non-verbal performing arts, both relying on visual and physical storytelling rather than spoken text.
Theatre, Art Forms Mime is a form of silent physical performance historically situated within the broader theatrical and performing-arts tradition.
Practitioners
Marcel Marceau was the most influential mime artist of the 20th century, creating the character Bip the Clown and reviving the art of mime as silent physical theatre.
Sources
1. Mime Artist (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundationlead section, first paragraph
is kind of performer who uses mime (also called pantomime), by acting or entertaining through the use of body motions without speech, as a theatrical medium or as a performance art.
History section, opening paragraph
His pupil Étienne Decroux was highly influenced by this, started exploring and developing the possibilities of mime, and developed corporeal mime into a highly sculptural form, taking it outside the realms of naturalism.
History, Ancient Greece and Rome
The performance of mime originates at its earliest in Ancient Greece; the name is taken from a single masked dancer called Pantomimus, although performances were not necessarily silent.
Formats, On stage and street
Mime has been performed on stage, with Marcel Marceau and his character "Bip" being the most famous.
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