Masks, Mime, and Imagination
April 19, 2004

“The art of mime is to tell a story without using words – and using a lot of imagination,” explained professional mime artist Reed Steele of Young Audiences. The Lower School students enjoyed a performance by Mr. Steele that included masking, mime, verbamime, and sign language. Audience participation was key in the verbamine sketch in which four members of the audience were asked to play various roles. Each time the characters’ names were spoken, the audience was to react with sound. The beautiful princess elicited an “aaawwww,” the handsome prince heard “my hero,” the evil duke (played a bit too well by sixth-grade teacher Mark Facciani), received the traditional “boo, hiss,” and the dragon brought the house down with a “roar.” The students saw various forms of masking. Mr. Steele placed a large black box on his head with the “face” made of Velcro. Using different colors and lengths of yarn, he illustrated a variety of emotions by moving the yarn around the “face.” Through this and using his body he illustrated how our expressions and body language show what we are feeling. Some of his sketches were walking a dog, balancing a baby elephant on his finger, and weightlifting. Perhaps the most impressive was his illustration of zero gravity in which he did slow-motion gymnastics using a chair as a prop. The favorite seemed to be the staircase sketch in which Mr. Steele mimed going up and down stairs, moving on an escalator, trying to run up a down escalator, moving on a mobile corridor, and of course the elevator. All of the children participated in signing to Louis Armstrong’s “It’s a Wonderful World,” using American Sign Language. As the program drew to a close and the students left the auditorium, they were practicing the different mime positions and moves they just witnessed. It was a successful introduction to an ancient art form. © 2004 The Pingry School