From the forthcoming book:

BodySpeak™: Moving Body and Mind, Selected Writings of Samuel Avital

"While studying in Paris with Etienne Decroux, Marcel Marceau and Jean-Louis-Barrault, I discovered that in mime there are no authors to write the scripts. I had to be my own author, actor, director, and composer. This proved to be a challenging effort. I had to integrate all of these specializations and become my own complete mini-theater.

"As I developed my craft, I experience a sense of elation in being able to use all of my abilities. I guided myself without depending on the written words of another author and without speaking words that were not of my own creation. I became the instrument of my inner voice. . . .

"To think one thing and to do another, in essence to split the expressions, is very dangerous because it creates conflicts and problems where they should not exist. I had to eliminate this conflict or risk becoming creatively stagnant. In the silence of a mime performance, the audience can readily sense this dichotomy.

"My belief is that human beings naturally desire to behave honestly in thought and action. The life struggle sometimes gets in the way, however, and the mind devises deceptive survival strategies. But the body retains its innocence and reveals the deception by subtle indications. The conflict between mind and body is eliminated when the two work together. . . .

"In my career I have met many thinkers who think and doers who do, but in a very fragmented manner. It is as if there is a junk shop with a merchant who has apparently unrelated items to sell. An integrated thinker walks into the shop, asks for nails, leather, glue, cloth, hammer . . . and produces a pair of shoes. . . .

"This is precisely why the discipline of mime became for me such an invaluable practice. . . . My art became one with my life. I achieved a state which may best be described as practical happiness. I then attempted to show others how they could achieve the same fulfillment."

Samuel Avital