SARAH YORO | staff writer
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Sarah Yoro
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| DR. MARCIA BERRY teaches sophomore theatre arts major KATHLEEN GROSKY various technques. |
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Every two years, the Department of Theater, Film and Television offers the course Mime: Principles and Performance.
Based on the style of Marcel Marceau, mime is the dramatization and movement of the body without the use of words.
For this year’s Common Day of Learning (CDL), the class will demonstrate voice-over mime performances and teach students miming basics.
“It’s not charades; it’s trying to tell a story with just the right amount of movements,” assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies Dr. Marcia Berry said. “You tell a story in reduced time and reduced movement and the audience must stay involved.”
Generally, a mime is dressed in all-black attire and the white face makeup is a device to make him or her neutral.
The class aims to reflect the CDL theme of “Teaching Knowledge and Good Judgment” through mime and movement.
“Part of the way I think you learn good judgment is through good movement,” Berry said. “I think you can learn wisdom in mime by learning how to portray a good message.”
During the session, the class will perform voice-over mime performances to a Bible passage, song or piece of literature. After, Berry will give a brief discussion about how to prepare for a voice-over and will invite audience members to perform.
“I’ll have the mime students go out and help [the audience] so it will be interactive,” Berry said. “I hope that people can then learn a little bit from what they see and take with them whatever they can.”
Berry’s interest in mime grew after she took a course at the University of Illinois.
After college, she joined the organization Youth with a Mission, also known as YWAM, and performed as a full-time mime in Europe.
Although Berry holds a Ph.D. in communication studies, she actually wrote her dissertation on new mime theory.
“I just somehow came up with the idea that you can base [miming] off of comic books,” Berry said. “It helps you understand how to be a mime. If you think about comic strips and mime you have very defined, simple movements. You have to tell the story quickly.”
Junior marketing major and theater arts minor Matthew Olmstead was one of the first students to take the mime course in spring 2007. Olmstead is the current teacher’s assistant for the course and is eager to help new students.
According to Olmstead, mime is difficult and often misunderstood.
“When I tell people I do mime, they think I’m either joking or it’s something they could do in their sleep,” Olmstead said. “But when you experience it, it’s a completely different thing.”
According to Berry, mime is important because everyone can relate to it.
“Acting students or people who want to do youth ministries can learn [from mime] because it trains your eye and body to tell stories, Berry said. “If you’re a speaker, you become aware of what you’re doing at every moment.”
In addition to art and entertainment, mime also serves as a tool to glorify God.
“It glorifies God because he gave [our bodies] to us and just being able to explore what it can do and entertain people by making them happy and sad is fun,” junior theatre arts major Jennifer Carbajal said. “If anything, it brings more joy to other people to watch.”
