Photos: Marceau in Dresden in 200 4. By Brücke-Osteuropa - Own work, Public Domain, wikimedia.orgThe art of mime or pantomime as it is called out of the Anglo-Saxon culture has lost one of the best artists of all time and according to many the best promoter of mime Marcel Marceau.

Marcel Marceau was a famous French mime artists and professor of mime known for his legendary character “Bip”. He died on September 22nd 2007 at the age of 84 and it was and still is a sad day for the people in theatre around the world and so many of his followers that every year visit his grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France.

Marceau was born Marcel Mangel on March 22, 1923, in Strasbourg, France. In 1944, Marceau's father was sent to Auschwitz, where he died. Marcel and his brother Alain changed their family name to Marceau and joined French Resistance. He was a talented painter so, as the story goes, he had falsified documents for Jewish children, dressed them up as scouts and took them over the Alps to Switzerland to safety. Kids were afraid, hungry, crying so he had to invent a way to entertain them in quiet while they were hiding. In his imagination he turned to his idol Charles Chaplin and “mimodrame” was born and later his legendary character the “Bip”. Marceau and many of the kids survived the Holocaust and the WWII.

Later when Paris was liberated he enrolled in Charles Dullin's School of Dramatic Art, studying with the renowned mime Etienne Decroux.

Marceau was not only the artist but also a great PR mind that created, inspired and used many opportunities to promote the art of mime in different media.

It is known that Michael Jackson borrowed his famous "moonwalk" from a Marceau, they have even performed together when Marcel Marceau was a special guest at the “Michael Jackson: One Night Only”, an HBO television special in 1995. The show was filmed in the intimate settings of the historic Beacon Theatre on Broadway which allowed the audience to watch Marceau’s lyrical mime movements.

Many of his friends and admirers were left with a question:”Will the art of mime survive without Marceau?”

The answer is given by his students Marko Stojanovic from Serbia and Ofer Blum from Israel who have established and run the WORLD MIME ORGANISATION since 2004 and have initiated the celebration of the WORLD MIME DAY on March 22nd the date of birth of Marcel Marceau. After 10 years from initiating it the World Mime Day is now celebrated in more than 40 countries on 4 continents and is just picking up the pace.

Mime is blooming in countries like Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan. Countries that have a strong mime tradition are waking up like France, Czechia, Russia, Germany. Marceau’s influence is very strong in South America and Japan.

The World Mime Organisation is trying to bring all those people together, unite them in finding new ways for the art of mime to survive in the new social, financial, media and technological conditions of the 21st century.

We should never forget that non-verbal communication is the first language humans spoke and it is in our nature to tell stories so probably first story-tellers were mime artists.

So, we believe that as long as there is human kind there will be the art of mime but we have to do more for it, help it evolve, change adapt.

“Mime is the Language of All” and as such “Mime is the Language of Peace” and those are the two slogans World Mime Organisation is promoting.

Just this summer World Mime Organisation became an official partner of the International Theatre Institute (ITI-UNESCO) the largest international organization for the performing arts.

The World Mime Organisation is preparing the first World Mime Conference and Students Mime Festival that will take place in Belgrade in March 2018.

We are also accepting new members from all over the world. It is not necessary for you to be a mime artist just to respect, love and enjoy the art of mime as we have a lot of members in that category that are actually our audience and not professionals.

You can listen to the Marko Stojanovic interview about the World Mime Day 2017 for the Australian ABC Radios show “It's Just Not Cricket with Glynn Greensmith”.

https://soundcloud.com/abc_radio/world-mime-day-and-marcel-marceau

Or watch the speech at the ITI World Congress in July 2017 in Segovia, Spain:

https://youtu.be/nD7g6DpGsSI

You can follow us on Twitter @worldmime

Or like u on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/worldmime/

Or become a member of the FB group: www.facebook.com/groups/worldmime/

Thank you,

World Mime Organisation

Published: Jun 22, 2017

"Dear friends,

Ten years ago, on September 22nd one of the greatest mimes of all times, Marcel Marceau has left this world. This is day of sadness for all the people around the world that respected him and his work and for some of us that were fortunate to now him and learn from him.

That is why we are marking this day in peaceful ways and celebrating the day Marcel Marceau was born, March 22nd as the World Mime Day.

World Mime Organisation wants to thank Mrs. Patrizia Iovine our member from Italy for the article she wrote www.sipario.it and she has allowed us to publish it in its original form in Italian on WMO website. Mrs.Patrizia Iovine is the author of a book "Marcel Marceau - The Poetry of the Motion".

Enjoy the article."

Il 22 settembre 2007 si spegneva a Cahors, all’età di 84 anni, il mimo Marcel Marceau. Un artista deciso a raccontare la vita in silenzio, su un palcoscenico nudo, popolato da personaggi creati dalla sua stessa fantasia. Un poeta del gesto che ha descritto, attraverso le pantomime di stile, l’ essenza della condizione umana, che ha creato, nel 1947, un personaggio dal pallore lunare, il malinconico Bip , discendente di Arlecchino, nipote di Pierrot e cugino di Charlot. Ho conosciuto il maestro in una gelida giornata di dicembre, nel 1992 a Parigi.

Un uomo umile, come tutti i veri grandi artisti. Tra i suoi racconti, legati insieme da un sottile filo di magia, la sua infanzia e i ricordi di un padre sensibile, amante dell’opera lirica e del cinema muto troppo presto chiamato dalla morte in un campo di concentramento ad Auschwitz nel 1944. Un’infanzia segnata da un vuoto incolmabile, simile a quella del suo idolo e ispiratore, Charlie Chaplin, figlio di un uomo alcolizzato e di una donna vittima della pazzia, trascinata via in manicomio. Due artisti che hanno cucito sulla tela della sofferenza il loro mondo in bianco e nero, che hanno scelto di prendere a morsi la vita, uno sulla scena del set cinematografico sotto la cupola grigia della capitale inglese negli anni ’20, l’altro tra le tavole della scena teatrale, tra i vicoli e i parchi immaginari della metropoli francese nel periodo postbellico. Bip e Charlot, due antieroi, malinconici ed emarginati, due parenti romantici che, nonostante le sconfitte, proveranno sempre a rialzarsi e a rinascere. Marcel Marceau ha rappresentato il disagio dell’uomo in una società ostile, ha messo a nudo l’animo umano.

Attraverso il gesto ha lasciato parlare, assieme ai personaggi ch’egli stesso era solito impersonare, anche gli oggetti, gli animali, gli elementi della natura, mostrandoli con tutto il loro volume e il loro peso. Creare il visibile dall’invisibile al contrario di Chaplin che, attraverso gli artifici del set riusciva a creare l’invisibile dal visibile. Roba da acrobati del cuore. Il maestro francese ha poi inventato la marcia contro il vento, avvalendosi della legge del contrappeso, da cui poi Michael Jackson erediterà il passo di danza moonwalk. Nei suoi one man show il celebre mimo non portava nulla con sé in scena, con i movimenti scanditi dal respiro riempiva lo spazio intero, lo popolava di anime erranti, di elementi e soprattutto di sogni .

La musica era il giusto contrappunto alle grida dell’anima, era complice, come un’amante, del silenzio. A differenza del suo severo maestro Étienne Decroux, grammatico e teorico del gesto che nel suo atelier parigino viveva ed insegnava l’arte del movimento (che secondo lui aveva origine nel ventre), Marcel Marceau ha portato in giro per il mondo la sua fascinosa arte muta e in una vecchia valigia il costume che il suo Bip avrebbe indossato per esibirsi nei suoi numeri pantomimici: una maglietta a righe bianca e nera, un vecchio gilet dai grossi bottoni , pantaloni bianchi, un cappello a cilindro con una rosa rossa tremula come un’emozione, delle scarpe da acrobata e accanto, il suo tenero cuore vagabondo.

Affascinato dai teatri d’oriente, dai generi Kabuki, Nō e Kathakali l’artista francese, esibendo un melanconico viso dipinto di bianco amava rappresentare il suo universo immaginario soprattutto con le mani e con il volto al contrario del suo maestro Decroux che, alla scuola di Charles Dullin, negli anni ’40, considerava mani e volto strumenti della menzogna e seguaci della chiacchiera declassandoli all’ultimo posto nella gerarchia degli organi espressivi.

Il poeta del silenzio ha messo insieme i tasselli del mosaico gestuale partendo dalle origini per arrivare ai giorni nostri. Nell’intero continente si celebra la sua arte preziosa. Una tecnica impeccabile, universale ed eterna che resterà indelebile tra le più belle pagine della storia del teatro.

Patrizia Iovine

http://www.sipario.it/attualita/i-fatti/item/10931-dieci-anni-dallo-morte-del-maestro-marcel-marceau-nel-silenzio-parla-il-re-del-gesto-di-patrizia-iovine.html