This is a weird question we got asked a while ago: are mimes still a thing?
Honestly, we can understand where it’s coming from. The art of mime has a long history, being developed from the 1811 artistry of Paris acrobat Jean-Gaspard Baptiste Deburau and the ancient Greeks before him, and like all old arts, it seems to decrease in popularity over time.
But having said that, yes – mimes are still a thing – just in a different format. Just like the styles of the art of painting moving from realism to Impressionism, Art Nouveau, Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract, and so on, so did the art of mime. What started as the oriental style of mime with Greek and Roman ancient actors that wore masks and performed stories of everyday life for the audience, sometimes by the thousands, has developed to the Italian style with the slapstick humor of likes of Charlie Chaplin that was common in silent films. Followed by the French style, a more dramatic and “artsy” type of act, that added melodrama and staging to the performance and later evolved further to the different styles of mime that are more common today.
For example, in recent years, mime has entered the church as a feature of dance and dramatization tool used to worship and educate. Another common way mime is still a thing today is in singing, often referred to as Lip sync (a technical term for matching the lip movements of talking or singing person with sung or spoken vocal, which can be considered a form of mime).
But some would say this is avoiding the real question, which is: can you still see mimes in the classical form? and that is a good one.
Are Classical Form Mimes Still a Thing?
In general, yes. You can find mime artists in some circus acts, and in many places with street performances. They do still wear the classic face paint, but the rest of the outfit depends on the part they are trying to play. Usually black-and-white, though not always. Any clown that doesn’t speak is a mime
There are a lot of mimes in the U.S. (and all around the world) that make a living as street performers, and unfortunately, many of them are not very good and are being ridiculed. But good mimes are true artists and are very much respected in many countries and the world of drama.
Related Post: 13 of Your Strangest Mime Questions Answered