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The Evolution of Mime: Towards Expansiveness of Being |
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The Evolution of Mime: Towards Expansiveness of Being |
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The following quotes, expressions and insights were captured by students from various workshops over the years. Some of these words may not make sense to your human intelligence, because they were uttered in context and were within a specific teaching situation. So kindly read them, and be inspired anyway!
Happy trails!
Samuel
"The process of mime is suppling the spine -the real spine, or the spine of understanding."
"The process here is scrubbing the mirror so you can be a clear reflection."
"We separate and work each part of the body so that later can put them all together."
"I am interested in working with awakened people doing something with the awakening."
"I can only give you what I know - not what is."
"We are in the process here of learning to think movement. Clowns, dancers, mimes think movement."
"The dancer is danced."
"You must vibrate spiritually as well as physically."
"What is learned must be applied immediately."
"Once you have a path, there is no vacation."
"Words can lie. The body cannot lie."
"It is important to make things simple, not complex, when dealing with beings not advanced."
"The slower the breathing, the more relaxed."
"Relaxing is a push and pull of the muscles at the same time."
"We are working toward psychic-physical perfection."
"Within limits, we find freedom."
"It is important to relax the parts of the body not being used in a movement."
"A relaxed hand is the most beautiful."
"People will knife you if you expose your self too soon."
"Are you communicating or just playing?"
"Performer, performing, performance. When you master this awareness, you can be called a mime, or a being."
"Achieving recognition is not the most important thing, but how you develop your life."
"If you open your suitcase too soon, it is empty."
"In mime you must create an object in a way that allows freedom of movement."
"When you show someone something you have not mastered, you are killing them."
"Stagnation occurs when you feel there are no higher levels to reach for."
"You work from where you are."
"It is important to find the center and the path to and from it."
"Nothing can harm you here."
"The development of the person is told by the control of his eyes."
"Laughter is a release from tension for the audience and the performer."
"There is no right or wrong movement, there is only movement."
"I swear to do the possible and only the possible."
"Nothing is impossible."
"Deposit the words in the bank."
"That's the work."
We die to communicate." "Come die with us."
"....You are in hell when you abuse words. Words can lie, but your true self, your non-verbal self cannot. Truth is what I'm after."
"Mime is more than an art. It is a way of life. It requires a metaphysical as well as a physical awareness."
"After you are perfect, then you begin to make mistakes again."
"Freeze is a movement that takes us beyond words."
"If you are not a good photographer, the development will be unclear."
"You ride the horse. The horse rides you. You do an action. The action does you."
"Discover the theatrical aspect of ritual."
"A true artist must be in complete control of him self before presenting him self to others.
"You must live your revelations."
"Even slight movements reveal your self."
"Be aware of the space between thought and action."
"We expand by finding our limitations and going beyond them."
"When working a piece, stay on your own level of excellence."
"Stories help us visualize the thing it self."
"Let the movement of the exercise remind you to feel here - not to project to another space, past or future."
"Enthusiasm is the key to crossing from a craftsman to an artist."
"If you feel the breast is dry, go."
"A teacher is one who takes what he is given and gives what cannot be taken."
"Once in the space of a piece, do not move like your self."
"Do not be satisfied with mediocrity."
"Find your own process of learning."
"Know how to use the tools available to you."
"The first step in mime is to be understood."
"A little window in you needs to be aware of the audience."
"Mime is a visual poem."
"Mime is the art of being and self becoming."
"In the midst of confusion, there must be clarity."
"Silent teaching is done in the space between the words."
"The danger is the passage from the abstract to the concrete."
"Pour yourself into the object."
A scientist goes from the many to the one. The mystic goes from one to the many."
"See how the cosmos is breathing."
"The secret of presence is a raised torso."
"The rhythm is the blood running through you."
"An artist is like a woman."
"Not understanding personality properly, is the greatest enemy of creativity."
"The flower allows the water to go in. The flower does not make any decision to want water, it expresses the need for it. We or Nature gives, and it grows."
"Mime is not just the skill of movement of acting without words, it's process is expanding the consciousness beyond mere sensitivity."
"Jump into your self."
"We divide in order to unite....not to sustain the division."
"Don't lean on each other, lean on your self."
"If you find the process of revelation, you might cause it."
"Creation comes when you are not aware of time."
"When it is not my space, I'm not; when it is my space, I am."
"You carry your self with you."
"The way I think I breathe. The way I breathe comes out in my movement."
"If you strive for an arrival, you will never arrive. Because there is nowhere to arrive."
"If you live on the seventh floor you can't go up without stairs."
"Mime is the presence of Creator."
"Mime is a prophet of vision."
"Be simple, but not simplistic."
"Only when you meet death, you know life."
"The beginning is the time; the end is the space."
"When the two edges meet, there is support."
"Do not support yourself, let the center support you."
"Here we forget the everyday movement."
"Eyes open means you are asleep."
"Only when you are in the center, there is peace."
"It is not by words that energy is revealed."
"When we speak less, and breathe deeper, it happens."
"The pelvis is a plastic land."
"People imitate animals, to learn about themselves."
"A mime is a person who knows how not to move."
"It manifests in spite of you."
"The god of the dancer is there; the god of the mime is here."
"Orgasm is freezing."
"There is laughter, even in washing the floor with tears."
"The source of comedy is unawareness."
"Mime begins where words end."
"Simplicity is the great teacher."
"All art springs from spiritual reality."
"Mime must be earth, (bound by gravity), water (in moving), and fire, (in rhythm)."
"It happens only in need."
"Know your limitation, and find the unlimited in them."
"Mime is an image."
"Don't lean on genius until you are one."
"If you try to form the hand, it becomes ugly; if you leave it natural, it is beautiful."
"On your table, bread and wine should be present to teach you something."
"Everything in the world is a product of condensation." (Tzimzum)
"If the moment is constant, the future is assured."
"Be in touch with your self, so that you can be in touch with others, which are not but your self."
"We have to fight for light, because there is too much shadow."
"Male and female represent humanity."
"Before the words are uttered, the actor expresses everything."
"When you don't need a teacher anymore, you have to drop him off a cliff, or you won't grow."
"There is plenty of time, but no time to lose."
"It is not old age that stands hunched over. It is senility."
"At the point when you are ready to quit, the work begins."
"Do it as if for the first time - that is the fire that transforms a craftsman into an artist."
"When you think you can do it, your progress stops."
"To do the easy thing takes nothing."
"It is not me that is speaking - it's my experience."
"One man's sorrow is another man's joy."
"The stomach accepts everything. Fortunately, the system eliminates what is not needed."
"If you want to show something, you must become that thing."
"We must forgive ourselves and others quickly, if we want to survive."
"If you verbalize about it, it doesn't happen - it's when you do it that it happens."
"You can't go to New York or Philadelphia without first going to central station."
"You get what you need."
"If you insist on needing to know why now, and you stay in that stubbornness, you won't find out anything."
"They say that one who has no humor, cannot live."
"When something is finished, it is finished. When you see something in the process of being finished, it's much more interesting."
"A bad clown can easily be silly, sentimental, or ridiculous. But a truly great clown can create a magnificent tragi-comic character, who is a one man embodiment of the theatre it self."
"When a lot of people are focusing on you on the stage, it's holy. The more you give the more you are rich. God is an experience, and you cannot talk about it."
"A mime has to know to go into any space. A mime is one who when he sees "Unknown" on a door he goes in, an average human being will fear the unknown and will stop, but the mime is beyond. We are little beings that want to go ahead."
"Now if you are going to relate to me by name, status, personality or whatever, you're not going to take anything from that criticism. But, if you take that voice of criticism that comes from here as a voice from within your self that is a very high state to be in. And that is one of the little big secrets of Learning How to Learn."
"Separation is a word that has been with me all my life. In other words, as soon as I begin to build something, as soon as I love someone, I stop doing it. It's not anything that I do willingly, but it's something outside of me. Part of it, because it happens a lot in my life, is that as soon as there is an achievement, there is an end. And at the end is a signal of beginning."
"Since we come to a space of understanding, I will cut the word understanding and say, UNDER/STAND - UNDER - UNDER - UNDER STAND. When you can put your self UNDER, when you are able to dig a grave and disappear, when you are able to die, to raise your ego in a CERTAIN WAY - If it is a friend, if it is an idea, or anything, then you can stand. Only when you are UNDER then can you STAND. UNDER is the horizontal. STANDING is the vertical."
"Man as an artist concerned with his art, searches out the original source, the primal force, in order that he may dream and meditate, discover him self and give of himself. In both action and contemplation, he is drawn to the mysterious silence. Within this silence lies the ability to know, to experience, and to communicate, herein exists the magic of Pantomime - silent music of the soul."
"Fortunately, my teachers and I are different. In other words, we are different in many ways. Studying with my teachers is eating some food, digesting, and eliminating. That which stays with you is you. I'm not interested in the kind of student who will imitate his teacher. Though Mime is imitation, and we grow up as children to imitate and even unconsciously. But when you look into your own inner source of finding out things, then you find your way. I admire my teachers. I hate them too. But, now I am in a state that is beyond love and hate. It presents it self in a certain way, that I will learn after years of living, digesting and experiencing. You are one. You are that kind of thing. That's why in the workspace too, I emphasize to students not to imitate me. I look for that, in other people."
"When we work movement, we always ask the question who is behind the movement? I do not give it a name. When you discover yourself, you know the word God doesn't mean anything. The word religion doesn't mean anything. Mime is an art which begins to express the self when words fail."
"Everyone of us carries a certain vibration. You want it or you don't want it. You are aware of it or you're not aware of it. You carry it with you. It shows from your actions, the way you look, the way you talk, the rhythm of your walk, from the words you use, even in the spaces between your words - it shows."
"In the beginning, we will imitate the animal, but after that we will have to find that keen relationship with the animal in you which corresponds to that which we call cat or dog. What is the feeling of brotherhood that you feel with an animal or group of animals?
You may not have come to that - it's not the animal you like. It's the animal within. Let me tell you why I brought this up. Though, only man walks and talks in all this beauty, we take it for granted. Man, envelops himself in all - ALL that is in the universe. The sound of the lion exists in man. The movement of the fish exists in man. In other words, man can do all that. He can leap. He can fly. All that animals can do, man can do too.
"I will give you my own definition of mime, as I see it after twenty years of practice. For me it becomes a multi-dimensional reality which transcends the communication with words that are attached to only the sense dimension that we have. That dimension, from my experience, is compared somehow to the dream world. You cannot write with words - you can, but in 5,000,000 volumes - you cannot write the dream.
The dream has signals and symbols that communicate what we need somehow. Unconsciously, the work of mime can help to work that dimension of dramas here. In other words, once the tool is sharpened enough or once the tool has worked and experienced enough or realized enough to find out how, I, the mime will fantasize, will write, will sculpt this fantasy in space. And by doing that, you are doing an act which is called in English to "perform." Since I am a cutter of words, I am going to cut this word also and say Per/form PER/form per - per - purr - purr - the cat purr - purr - per form PRE form - in other words, you work your ideas in a certain way and PRE - Form them."
"In the beginning was the word, BEFORE the word there was motion, vibration, movement, the source of all life."
Shakespeare said: "To be OR not to be." We say: "To be AND not to be."
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