A full on, stuck in the box, walking in place, Marcel Marceau, "Pantomime-Blanche," mime class

A full on, stuck in the box, walking in place, Marcel Marceau, "Pantomime-Blanche," mime class. Taught by Clown Conservatory grad Jeff Seal. For more about Jeff, visit our previous post about him.

http://www.houseofyes.org/events/

Night School: Beginning Pantomime with Jeff Seal!

August 25th

$5-15 sliding scale donation.

9pm-11pm

@ House of Yes

This class will give you the basics of "pantomime blanche" or
white-faced illusion-based mime. Students will learn exercises
involving fixed-point, isolation, resistance and the other building
blocks of pantomime and physical acting in general. These skills can
help a performer more effectively communicate his/her ideas and
emotions with an audience through clear and precise physical
articulation. They are useful for any performer from an improviser to
an aerialist.

--
http://www.houseofyes.org/events/
House of Yes
342 Maujer St.
Between Waterbury and Morgan Ave.
L Train to Grand St.

SEEKING AFRICAN-AMERCAN AND HISPANIC MIMES FOR PAID COMMERCIAL

Got this via email just now:  might be good for somebody out there reading this:

SEEKING AFRICAN-AMERCAN AND HISPANIC MIMES FOR PAID COMMERCIAL

DEPT OF HEALTH ABSTINENCE CAMPAIGN
PAY RATE: $1000 for fitting/rehearsal day
$2000 for shoot day including 2 year buyout
Casting Director: Strickman-Ripps
Audition: Wednesday, July 16
Shoot: July 31, 2008
Location: New York

Seeking Mimes. We are open to those who have professional movement and
professional dance experience, but will need to be familiar with miming and
will need to prepare short mime
performance.

[DAD] African American and Hispanic, ages 30¹s-mid 40¹s.
[GIRLS] African American and Hispanic, ages 10-­14.

If interested and available, please call Strickman-Ripps Casting ASAP:
212-966-3211

July Class in DC-- Body-Motion-Gesture

center for movement theatre
actor preparation of the body
the imagination
and the art of collaboration
www.thisisthecenter.com 202 462-5810

BODY · MOTION · GESTURE
Taught by Dody DiSanto

JULY 1 – 29 Tuesday nights 7 - 10pm 5 Weeks Tuition - $250
Class location: The Center 4321 Wisconsin Ave, NW
METRO: redline Tenleytown

This class will work from the roots of classical pantomime and progress to a fast-paced style of gestural language that develops both micro and macro image building. They will also investigate spatial dynamics through the use of a reduced playing area. Strong ensemble training.

Dody DiSanto
TRAINING: Diploma, teaching certificate, Laboratoire Etude de Movement from Ecole Jacques Lecoq, where she received a private pedagogic apprenticeship; Etienne Decroux: corporal mime; Ecole Nationale du Cirque: wire, juggling, acrobatics, tap under the direction of Annie Fratellini; George Washington University: Fine Arts, Dance; Corcoran College of Art and Design. Nationally Certified for Massage Therapy and Bodywork.
TEACHING: Faculty at The Academy for Classical Acting for The Shakespeare Theatre at The George Washington University, The Yale School of Drama, The Catholic University of America and at The Center for Movement Theatre in Washington DC; Corcoran College of Art and Design: Dynamic Studies in Space, Gesture and Structure; Theatre of Creation Festival: assistant to Jacques Lecoq; Ringling Clown College and many years of residencies, workshops and coaching in various settings from academia to the curb of life.
PERFORMANCE: Off-Broadway at LaMaMa E.T.C., Lincoln Center Serious Fun Festival, Theatre for the New City, the Avignon Festival and for television and film. Founder and artistic director of Membrane Theatre Ensemble, and a member of several ensembles, including Chantier Theatre, Present Company, Phoenix Dance Theatre and Barking Rooster Theatre. Dody also created, owned and managed internationally acclaimed music venue, Nightclub 9:30 in Washington DC from 1980-87.

INFORMATION – REGISTRATION – WWW.ThisIsTheCenter.com

Paul Wildbaum

Paul Wildbaum is a mime/clown/ standup comedian that has thrilled audiences around the world with an inspired repertoire of comedy, visual theater and audience participation. Described as "hilarious" and "touching", Paul is a compelling performer who combines the sublime with the ridiculous to create a brilliant cast of characters: Hamlet as a drunk, a baby unsure about being born; and with an uncanny ability to involve the audience, he creates a western in which he plays the villain and has audience members playing all the other roles, even the saloon doors.

Paul studied mime with Til Thiel for seven years, Commedia Dell'Arte with Carlo Mazzone Clemente, and clown and mask with Richard Pochenko. He also apprenticed and performed as a puppeteer and studied acting and directing with Marie Hopps.

He has presented his work to international audiences since 1976, representing Canada to such prestigious events as The Macao Arts Festival, The International Comedy Festival in Melbourne , Australia , the Totus World Theater Festival in Poland , the 1992 Expo in Seville , London International Mime Festival and the Montreal Just For Laughs International Comedy Festival. At Expo 86, in Vancouver, he was in such demand that a 6 week engagement was extended to 4 months and again, at Expo 88 in Brisbane, Australia, he was held over for a month. In 2004, he performed at the prestigious Singapore Comedy Festival.

To find out more about Paul's work, visit his website listed below:
http://www.paulwildbaum.com

Daniel Stein workshop July 21-Aug 7 Berkeley, CA

I took this workshop 10 years ago at Dell'arte and it was fantastic then-- I'm sure it's gotten even better now.

More information at http://www.berkeleyrep.org/school/adult_index.asp

====================================

generating new material: heart of a poet / mind of an actor / body of a gymnast

Instructor: Daniel Stein

Give your imagination a whack on the side of the head! Discover concrete ways to get beyond "STUCK" when you're creating new work. Practice ways to think, see and create without the auto-critique shutting you down. This is a hands-on course in generating new material dealing with the emotions of shape, the excitement of rhythms (tempo, architectural, dynamic) and finding ideas from untapped and unconventional sources. Otherwise put: it's training in juggling the juxtaposition of the physical world on stage and the metaphysical world that the audience will eventually take home with them. You, the artist, will go back to your studio with concrete ideas and a running start at building your next project. This work is great for performers, directors, teachers and anyone else looking for freedom and empowerment in their own creativity.

Daniel Stein studied in the Professional Actors Training Program at Carnegie Mellon University, where he worked with Jewel Walker. He then studied with Etienne Decroux in Paris, becoming M. Decroux's translator, and began his professional career as an actor with the French National Theatre—a relationship which lasted 20 years. His solo performances have toured in more than 30 countries, and have been seen in the US in venues such as the Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center. He has taught master classes throughout the world at institutions such as Juilliard School and The Institute of Dramatic Arts, Tokyo. Daniel has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and is a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. Daniel served for five years as Dean of Students and another five years as School Director, of The Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre. The fall of '08 has him slated to direct in Philadelphia and act in Clown Show for Bruno Shultz in Israel and Germany.

Books published that talk about his work:

• Le Theatre du Geste by Jacques Lecoq, Bordas–Paris
• Modern and Post Modern Mime by Thomas Leabhart, Modern Dramatists
• The Origins and Development of the Art of Mime by Annette Lust, Scarecrow Press

Monday–Thursday, 7–10PM • 7/21–8/7 • $500

Clown Show for Bruno Feb 27,28 in Atlanta

Acclaimed mime Daniel Stein and Dell'arte graduates Kali Quinn and Bill Celentano are featured in a new show about Polish artist and novelist Bruno Schultz (author of the classic Street of Crocodiles) Schulz was killed in the Holocaust in 1944 by a German officer. The show will be performed at Atlanta's PushPush Theatre. The play,written by author Murray Mednick, is produced in association with Padua Playwrights.


In 1978, Murray Mednick and five other playwrights, including Sam Shepard and Maria Irene Fornes, converged on the old Padua Hills estate in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, just east of Los Angeles. The playwrights, as well as playwriting students and actors, were given free reign to re-investigate their creativity, developing writing exercises for the morning, rehearsing in the afternoon, and presenting the results in the evening.

Since 2000, Padua has become a production company that produces works as well as inspires them.

The Bruno Project is expected to tour throughout the world, Poland, Germany, the Ukraine and Israel. Guy Zimmerman’s direction uses elements of mask, clowning and other theatrical disciplines to underscore the lyrical poeticism of Mednick’s text. This timeless production will speak to audiences at all levels – young and old, Jewish and non-Jewish - but will have a particular impact on younger audiences looking for new ways to understand the Nazi genocide.

Key collaborators in the Bruno project include, playing the lead, celebrated Commedia performer and teacher Daniel Stein. After attending the professional actor training program at Carnegie-Mellon University, Stein studied in Paris with French master Etienne Decroux, and made his home in Paris for 20 years.

Daniel started his professional career as an actor with the French National Theatre, and his solo performances have toured in more than 30 countries, as well as in theatres such as the Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center here in the United States. Formerly head of the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre, in Blue Lake CA (among many other prestigious teaching credits), Stein is joined for this production by two of his star students, Kali Quinn and Bill Celentano, who have made names for themselves in the Los Angeles and New York theater community. Also on board for Padua’s production of Clown Show for Bruno are award-winning designers John Zelewski (music and sound design), Ann Closs-Farley (costume design), Jeffrey Atherton (set and mask design.), and current Padua director Guy Zimmerman

SHOW DATES
Monday, February 25: Danville, Kentucky - Centre College, Norton Center for the Arts (Studio 502)
Wednesday, February 27: Decatur, Georgia - Push Push Theater
Thursday, February 28: Atlanta, Georgia - Goethe Institute Library

To find out more about the show and the theatre, visit the websites listed below:

http://www.pushpushtheater.com/
http://www.paduaplaywrights.net/

On the Padua site, there is a video (apparently not linkable) that you can view which is an interview with author Murray Mednick about the project. The video also features scenes from the production.

Au Revoir, M. Marceau

Marcel Marceau died yesterday, and the world is a sadder place for it.

The only real response to Marceau dying can be this

" ! "

He was a true master of his work, and he popularized (and romanticized) the work of mime to an unbelievable degree. there's no question that nearly every clown or mime performing in the world owes something to Marceau. And every mime-bashing joke also owes Marceau too. He didn't invent mime (he was a student of Etienne Decroux, widely considered to be the father of modern mime), but he turned it into something that has become part of our national zeitgeist. Everybody has a feeling about mimes (usually bad ones who were imitating the Master)

I saw Marceau perform three times, and saw him teach once (he gave a demonstration at a master class that I was in.) Popped in unexpectedly. He demonstrated the Ages of Man (an exercise in which you start as a baby and transform into an old man slowly going through life)

He was a fantastic performer and a generous teacher, and someone who did what he loved to do his entire life. I saw him last in the late 1990's, and he performed his computer dating bit, and while the material itself was dated, he was fantastic in it.
He had real heart and soul, and the world is poorer (and strangely louder) because of him.


BBC OBITUARY: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7009040.stm

REUTERS OBIT: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-arts-marceau.html
MARCEAU INTERVIEW (CSM): http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0923/p25s01-almp.html


INFO ABOUT MARCEAU'S SCHOOL: http://www.mime.info/EIMP_help.html

Billy The Mime

Billy The Mime is a clown, performer, and (obviously) mime who has garnered international attention with his show stopping appearance in the hit documentary THE ARISTOCRATS.

Billy's television appearances include The Jimmy Kimmel Show on ABC and Penn & Teller's Bullshit! on Showtime. He recently appeared at The 2006 New York International Fringe Festival garnering rave reviews and sold-out shows. He returned to New York for a Fringe Encore ¡§Best of the Festival¡¨ at The Lion Theater at Theater Row.

He presented five sold-out shows at the Montreal Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in 2006 and recently appeared at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los Angeles and New York. Other appearances include The Aspen Comedy Festival, The Revolutions International Theater Festival in New Mexico and a critically acclaimed seven week run at The Sacred Fools Theater in Los Angeles.

Billy has taken master classes with Marcel Marceau, in addition to studying with Flip Reade, clown and mask work with James Donlon and circus skills with Hovey Burgess at Ringling Brother's Barnum & Bailey's Clown College.

Billy will be performing a limited engagement of a new show America LoveSexDeath from Aug 23-Sept 29 at the Flea Theatre in New York City. The show will tackle controversial subject matter with such routines as JFK JR. We Hardly Knew Ye, Close To Her: Karen Carpenter, Slave!, World War II, Thomas & Sally: A Night at Monticello>, The Priest and The Altar Boy, The Abortion, Terry Schiavo, Adieu, A Night in San Francisco - 1979, A Day Called 9/11, Kurt Cobain: Why?, Christopher Reeve: A Super Man, Love & Death: OJ and Nicole, A Night with Jeffrey Dahmer and Virginia Tech 4/16/07.

To find out more about Billy's work, visit his website listed below.

To get tickets to his show at the Flea Theatre, call 212.352.3101 and mention code BILLYTM to get a $5 discount. You can also order online by visiting the Flea Theatre website listed below.

http://www.billythemime.net


Flea Theatre Press Release

Mark Jaster

Mark Jaster is a clown and mime based in the Washington, D.C. area. The Washington Post has called Mark Jaster a "clown extraordinaire and one of the most graceful performers you will ever see on a stage."

Mark's skills in mime were developed in training with 20th-century masters Marcel Marceau and his teacher, E. Decroux, along with careful observation of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harpo Marx. Mark served as teaching assistant to Mr. Marceau in a series of seminars in Michigan, and he teaches frequently in Artist residencies, theatres, and dance programs.

Mark has three solo performances that he tours: Piccolo's Trunk, A Fool Named 'O', and The Maestro. In all of them, Mark combines live music, unusual instruments, outrageous acrobatics, and hyper-advanced communication skills all together in a performance that erases the bad feelings that most people have when they conjure up the word "Mime." Mark recently created a new show with his wife and partner, Sabrina Mandell, The Seven Ages of Mime, which had a sold-out run at the Round House Theatre in Silver Spring, MD.

Mark is a regular as Herr Drosselmeyer in the Maryland Youth Ballet's Holiday Nutcracker, and has appeared frequently with the Washington Revels and on the stage of the Maryland Renaissance Festival.

Mark is a proud member of The Big Apple Circus' Clown Care Program, performing at the Children's National Medical Center and Johns Hopkins University Hospital.

To find out more about Mark's work, please visit his website listed below:
http://www.markjaster.com

5 day Neutral Mask Intensive in NY

5-DAY INTENSIVE • IN NYC
NEUTRAL MASK developed by JACQUES LECOQ
with MASTER TEACHER DODY DISANTO
A COMPREHENSIVE COURSE - 30 hours
JUNE 24 thru 28 2007
Sunday – Thursday 10am - 5pm


HELD IN NEW YORK CITY
at Trisha Brown Dance Studio
625 West 55th Street
Tuition - $600 ($550 if paid by May 31st )

Utilizing the innate wisdom of the body, the neutral mask enables us to find freedom, awareness and expression. It is a foundation and point of reference for building all character. It pushes us to our growing edge, guides us into a dialogue with our habits and arrives at the truth through essential gesture.

The neutral mask is a full-face mask that you wear through a series of exercises. The mask engages a large space and beckons you to expand your presence. The exercises allow you to experience how the great movements of nature correspond to the most intimate movements of human emotion.

The course will cover the entire thrust of the neutral mask work, including all supporting structures: dynamic studies, movement analysis, element identifications and ensemble creation.

This course is open to professional individuals of all levels.
Classes are very physical.
SPACE IS LIMITED - To register, give the organizaers a call at 202-462-5810 or visit this website: http://www.thisisthecenter.com/cmt.html#register

International Mime Awareness Day

Article on a Boulder television station website about International Mime day... and Zoobie, the only mime who showed up.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE



Mime breaks silence over dying art form

BOULDER - The artist known as "Zoobie" found himself in a conundrum along Pearl Street Mall during the Wednesday lunch hour. How do you celebrate Mime Awareness Day when he was the only mime in attendance?

"I thought there'd be several, about 20, 30, or 40, but no, there are no mimes," said "Zoobie," who said he communicated with dozens of mimes in Colorado over the Internet and through the Boulder Camera about the event.

"We're having trouble getting the word out about mimes," he said.

The art form dates back thousands of years, with theatre-goers for generations watching the expression of thoughts and emotions performed without words and through physical gestures. Supporters fear in the noisy world we live in, this silent art form is dying.

"The mime projects that which we hide... and most of us hide a lot of things," said Samuel Avital, who runs Le Centre du Silence, a school that has taught mime since 1971. "It's very essential in human communication."


READ THE FULL ARTICLE

OTHER RESOURCES:
http://www.mimeovermatter.com

Le Centre Du Silence Mime School

The Celebration Barn

The Celebration Barn is a center for variety arts performance, mime, clowning, and commedia. Founded by world-famous mime Tony Montanaro in 1972, The Barn has been the artistic home to many of the top clowns, jugglers, mimes, and variety artists in North America. Nestled in the sleepy town of South Paris, Maine, the Barn offers a full season of intense, creative, and focused performance-study programs with world-class teachers, all in the stunning foothills of the western Maine mountains.

Alumni of the Barn have gone on to careers in television, film and theater. Puppeteers with Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, writers for Between the Lions, the host of Hollywood Squares, and performers in Cirque du Soleil and other circuses.

Each summer the workshops range from three day intensives to two week advanced sessions. All workshops have a limited enrollment to ensure individual attention from instructors.



The facilities at the Barn include two large rehearsal studios, a 125-seat theater, housing, and a large kitchen.


The new executive director of the Barn is Amanda Huotari, a former student of the Barn who has been a fixture there for the last 15 years, and a fabulous clown in her own right.


To find out more about the Barn, visit their website:
http://www.celebrationbarn.com/

Adam Gertsacov/ Acme Clown Company

THE ACME CLOWN COMPANY Uses Popular Theatrical Traditions To Amaze, Educate, And Entertain Audiences Of All Ages.

Specialities include puppetry, clowning, commedia dell'arte, circus skills, magic, melodrama, masks, and method acting.

They perform shows, teach workshops and residencies, and coach and direct physical comedy and clown routines.

The boss clown of the Acme Clown Company is Adam Gertsacov (the author of this blog).

Adam is the most educated clown in America (barring certain elected officials.) He wears many hats, including those of a professional clown, an author and publisher, a P.T. Barnum impersonator, a flea circus impresario,and the esteemed hat of the Clown Laureate of Greenbelt, Maryland. Adam is the Festival Director for Bright Night Providence.

If you'd like to find out more about Adam's work, please visit his websites listed below:

Clown Shows and Classes http://www.acmeclown.com
An Authentic Victorian Flea Circus http://www.trainedfleas.com
P.T. Barnum Impersonation Show http://www.ptbarnum.org
House Renovation Blog About Yonkers http://www.yonked.com
Bright Night Providence http://www.brightnight.org