Mime

This weedend, I stayed in Shinjuku and there was plenty of time to read books. And I finished to read "Mime- basic lesson of drama" by Hiroko Koyano. I found this book when I was blowsing the site of coaching.

The auther learned mime and movement at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris and introduces what she learned there through this book.

The word "mime" reminded me pantomime firstly. But this book doesn't explain the technique of mime. Through improvisation (sometimes it contains no lines, just a situation), students have to face themselves, get how to really feel and act. It must be shocking to face the real self.

Students get the possibility of movements through acting as natural elements, materials, animals, words, sounds and colours. Lecoq says "miming is a way of rediscovering a thing with renewed freshness…" And they also discover themselves anew with the Neutral Mask. I found it interesting to act with a mask. (The photo is a mask which I bought in Venice. My favorite one!) After that, they proceed major dramatic territories, such as melodrama, buffoon, tragedy, Commedia dell'arte clowning and so on.

While reading this book, I remembered the acting class at the English school. It was fun to act thinking situations on the spot. I'd like to take the acting class again.