Hello fellow theatre enthusiasts.
The 35th annual Summer Mime Workspace with Samuel Avital has recently come to a close and here I am to share a few of my impressions with you.
Have you ever had the precious experience of coming together with a small group of like minded human beings to do a kind of work which it felt like you were on this earth to do? This is what the SUmmer Mime Workspace was like for me. Samuel Avital seemes to me to be a rare and precious teacher. He sees the good in all human beings and he encourages us to leap from the valleys of mediocrity to the peaks of excellence. To encounter the work of Mime is to be immediately stripped of pretense because though we can obscure the truth with our words, the body is totally honest.
Have you heard the proverb, "The camel never sees it's own hump?" There were many times during the Mime Workshop when I thought that I understood how to manifest a particular technique until Samuel brought me in front of the group to demonstrate. By watching how I moved my body, everybody in the group could see the nature of my misunderstanding, even when I couldn't. Thankfully Samuel is able to reflect limitations so that they can be seen and so we can work in a directed way to restore our natural ways of moving in the world. The experience was humbling without being humiliating.
Samuel has a good heart and has a wide open sense of humor that arises from a very large perspective of living on this planet. He was raised in Morocco by a family with deep spiritual roots in the Kabbalah. After many adventures, Samuel arived in Paris to study closely with Etienne Decroux as well as Marcel Marceau and Jean-Louis Barrault. Samuel toured Europe for years with Maximilian Decroux before coming to America to perform teach and finally settle around Boulder,Colorado where he has guided many people towards a vital means of authentic creative expression.
Everyone who participated in this summer workshop came away feeling gratitude and inspiration.
Here's a brief summary of things I learned.
Manifesting mental images into physical body positions forms the basis of a precise mode of expression.
Exaggeration is accomplished by relaxing the body so that emotional energy can circulate more freely.
Culturally conditioned anxieties and tensions restrict theatrical expressions. Becoming a good actor requires significant unconditioning.
Assuming new positions awakens unique perspectives and intelligence in the body.
In order to lead without coercion, an atmosphere of trust must be present. Aberrant muscle tension and resistance are physical manifestations of mistrust.
It is a great art to trust and learn to allow natural responses to gentle touch.
In Mime we must learn the art of being simultaneously alert and relaxed.
This path of Mime requires clarity of focus, vibrancy of imagination, precision of execution, release of inhibition, and a longing to draw near the source of our creativity. For me, Mime has awakened a wish to relax and expand into an authentic way of creative being.
After so many words about the silent art of mime, I feel like I barely scratched the surface of this wonderful experience.
If you want to learn more about Samuel Avital and his work, visit his website at www.bodyspeak.com.
There's also an extraordinary recent interview with Samuel posted at www.kabbalahnow.indranet.com/about/ijhc.html
Making the invisible Visible,
Paul
The 35th annual Summer Mime Workspace with Samuel Avital has recently come to a close and here I am to share a few of my impressions with you.
Have you ever had the precious experience of coming together with a small group of like minded human beings to do a kind of work which it felt like you were on this earth to do? This is what the SUmmer Mime Workspace was like for me. Samuel Avital seemes to me to be a rare and precious teacher. He sees the good in all human beings and he encourages us to leap from the valleys of mediocrity to the peaks of excellence. To encounter the work of Mime is to be immediately stripped of pretense because though we can obscure the truth with our words, the body is totally honest.
Have you heard the proverb, "The camel never sees it's own hump?" There were many times during the Mime Workshop when I thought that I understood how to manifest a particular technique until Samuel brought me in front of the group to demonstrate. By watching how I moved my body, everybody in the group could see the nature of my misunderstanding, even when I couldn't. Thankfully Samuel is able to reflect limitations so that they can be seen and so we can work in a directed way to restore our natural ways of moving in the world. The experience was humbling without being humiliating.
Samuel has a good heart and has a wide open sense of humor that arises from a very large perspective of living on this planet. He was raised in Morocco by a family with deep spiritual roots in the Kabbalah. After many adventures, Samuel arived in Paris to study closely with Etienne Decroux as well as Marcel Marceau and Jean-Louis Barrault. Samuel toured Europe for years with Maximilian Decroux before coming to America to perform teach and finally settle around Boulder,Colorado where he has guided many people towards a vital means of authentic creative expression.
Everyone who participated in this summer workshop came away feeling gratitude and inspiration.
Here's a brief summary of things I learned.
Manifesting mental images into physical body positions forms the basis of a precise mode of expression.
Exaggeration is accomplished by relaxing the body so that emotional energy can circulate more freely.
Culturally conditioned anxieties and tensions restrict theatrical expressions. Becoming a good actor requires significant unconditioning.
Assuming new positions awakens unique perspectives and intelligence in the body.
In order to lead without coercion, an atmosphere of trust must be present. Aberrant muscle tension and resistance are physical manifestations of mistrust.
It is a great art to trust and learn to allow natural responses to gentle touch.
In Mime we must learn the art of being simultaneously alert and relaxed.
This path of Mime requires clarity of focus, vibrancy of imagination, precision of execution, release of inhibition, and a longing to draw near the source of our creativity. For me, Mime has awakened a wish to relax and expand into an authentic way of creative being.
After so many words about the silent art of mime, I feel like I barely scratched the surface of this wonderful experience.
If you want to learn more about Samuel Avital and his work, visit his website at www.bodyspeak.com.
There's also an extraordinary recent interview with Samuel posted at www.kabbalahnow.indranet.com/about/ijhc.html
Making the invisible Visible,
Paul
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