MIME'S HELPING POWER

By Chris Kanaly, 1990, Grand Junction, CO

"I began my work in mime in 1971, when I was 21 years old. I was an early member of the Boulder Mime Theater."

After my experience in Boulder, I moved to Phoenix and was a founding member of the Alwun Basement Theater. We used mime, multimedia and music to create our shows, which were experimental in nature. Our most refined theater creation was entitled 'Glyphs.' This show described the relationship between a man and his file folder. It was a highly political rendering. After 'Glyphs,' I returned to college and received a degree in music composition. On this stage, I discovered 'Box.'

I created 'Box' as a character that young children could enjoy, relate to, and learn from. I still perform it. When 'Box' isn't performing, he sits in the back of his pickup in a local storefront window.

One day an artist passed and said, 'What a fine sculpture. You must have been influenced by constructivism.' Later, I learned that constructivism is a short era known to art historians, which occurred in an early part of this century.

I don't know what 'Box' thinks about being a sculpture or if he has any thoughts about constructivism, but he is glad to have touched someone in an artistic way.

This fall, I became involved in teaching mime to adolescents. I am working at the Center for Enriched Communications with a number of people. Hopefully, mime will help these people the way it helped me.