A mime is a form of silent art that involves acting or communicating using only movements, gestures, and facial expressions. A person performing mime – also called a mime – usually uses several elements to make his/her performance memorable. so what are the top 9 key elements in mime? keep on reading!
Key Elements in Mime
There are several important things to keep in mind when studying mime. Following these rules to make your scenes understandable and enjoyable for your audience.
1. Exaggerated Action
In teather in general, and especially in mime, each action should be much bigger than real life to make it crystal clear to your audience. It doesn’t matter if you are an Abstract mime (that focuses on provoking thought about a particular subject by expressing certain feelings or emotions), or a Literal mime (who tells a story with a plot and characters, often in funny situations intended to elicit laughter from the audience) – you should use your entire body to show any emotion or to complete an action, even if doing so is a bit unrealistic. This will help the audience understand your scene, and increase their engagement.
read more about types of mime.
2. Full Emotions
Use BIG facial expressions (think of clowns). Remember to use your whole body to show the emotion (ie. Jump for joy, cringe in fear).
Facial expression is really important when performing a mime because otherwise, you audience will not know how the character is feeling about the events happening in the act. The facial expression could be happy, sad, angry, confused, annoyed, worried, or scared. By understanding these emotions we understand more about how the character is feeling, and get a better sense of empathy for the actors in the story.
3. Energy and Position
When miming one tends to use the majority of the stage, but it’s important to direct the action to the audience. An important moment (such as falling over or dropping ice cream) should be performed in the middle of the stage, with high energy and facing the audience – so there is no confusion and the audience will be able to see what has happened.
Especially as there is no verbal communication, a mime should try and exaggerate the amount of effort required to complete an action (for example: If something is heavy, then veins should be popping out of your head as you lift it).
4. Precision and Clear Actions
Percision is one of the most vital key elements in mime. All of your movements on stage must be carefully thought out step by step and executed precisely in order to keep the meaning clear.
Clear hand gestures are vital for our understanding of the mime. Actors need to make sure it is clear what they are holding and when they pick it up or put it down. Vague, limp, rapid, or sloppy actions are easily misinterpreted, and it is very difficult to understand what a mime is about if the actions aren’t clear.
Remember, the audience can not see the imaginary object the mime is manipulating, so a cell phone can look exactly like a TV remote or a calculator if your actions are not making it clear.
5. Expectations of Reality
The audience will understand if YOU (as the mime) behave a bit unrealistically, and might even expect that, but they won’t understand if objects behave unrealistically. Don’t change the laws of physics!
Objects must not teleport into your hands. Everything must come from somewhere AND must be put somewhere when you are done with it.
This leads us to the next key element –
6. Consistency
The act, and objects in it, must remain consistent. Once you create an object on the stage, it should stay where you put it until further action. Keep track of where things “are” on stage to ensure that you don’t walk through a chair, or move objects only in your mind.
A mime is usually a little story in itself. It helps if the mime has a beginning, middle, and end, with an additional problem that gets resolved by the end. A simple storyline helps the audience keep track of what is happening.
7-9. More Key Elements In Mime
There are a few more things to remember when creating the perfect mime act.
Silence – A mime is a form of silent art. Miming is to be distinguished from silent comedy in a film or dramatic sketch, in which the artist is a seamless character. The interplay of music and silence forms an integral part of mime and often is used to elevate the dramatic effect.
Make-Up – The white full-face make-up is there to heighten the dramatic impact of the movements and expressions. This make-up projects the face of Everyman during the performance, which enables all members of the audience to identify with the situation.
Sound Effects – A mime artist often uses sound effects to bring in the element of humor to liven up a situation. The sound effects add a special touch to many comical situations such as an invisible door with a working doorbell, or an invisible car with a realistic horn and motor sound.
