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Teaching artists Keith Berger and Sharon Diskin teach some basic skills used in mime and pantomime and demonstrate two brief scenes involving the techniques learned. 

Vocabulary You Will Learn:

• Mime - The art of telling stories using bodies, hands, and faces, and very few spoken words. 
• Pantomime - The skill of creating invisible objects in space. 
• Tension - The strength in your muscles that make it look like an object is hard to pull. 
• Narration mime - A type of mime where the performers onstage mime the action and performers offstage shout out the story’s narration. 
• Fixed point - A point in space that doesn’t move; instead the mime’s body moves around it.

Materials You Will Need:

• Nothing - just yourself!

How to Use Mime and Pantomime to Create Two Different Scenes

1. First, we’re going to warm up our hands before beginning to mime. Hold one hand up, facing out, and then bend each finger down individually, starting with your pinky. Then turn your hand so your palm is facing in and extend each finger in the same way. Repeat with your opposite hand.
2. Now we’re going to practice grabbing onto our invisible tug-of-war rope. Practice grabbing a point in space at about waist level with your hand facing out, and then practice letting it go. Repeat this a few times. Do the same with your other hand about a foot away, so that it looks like you are holding onto a rope. Practice pulling the invisible rope, crossing one hand over the other as you do so, as if you’re playing tug-of-war. Be sure to show lots of tension in your muscles so it looks like you are really struggling to hold onto the rope.
3. Next let’s imagine that someone is on the opposite end of the rope, pulling against you. Extend your hands out, followed by your arms, shoulders, and torso, so that it looks like you are being pulled towards the person holding the other end of the rope. Pull the rope towards you and then let it be pulled away a few times, to show the back-and-forth struggle. Show with your face the anger and frustration you’re feeling as you pull the rope. If you’d like to practice this with Sharon, scroll to around 5:30 in the video. 

4. Next, we’re going to practice acting out a narration mime called, “The Heavy Suitcase.” If you’d like to hear Keith’s narration as you act this out, scroll to around 7:00 in the video. First, pretend that you are trying to lift a very heavy suitcase. The handle of the suitcase should be a fixed point - it shouldn’t move as you mime trying to lift it with one, and then both, hands.
5. Mime opening the suitcase, taking a brick out of it, and tossing it aside. (You can pretend, like Keith does, that the brick hits someone or something behind you!) Do the same thing with one or two more bricks. 
6. Now we can mime lifting the heavy suitcase and walking with it. Be sure to show how heavy the suitcase is through the tension in your arm.  Walk slowly in place. Pretend that you are entering a hot climate and pushing branches aside as you move through the space. 
7. Next, you’ll mime moving through a rainforest. Pretend that it is beginning to rain and use your hand to mime a spider monkey crawling on you before continuing to walk with the heavy suitcase. Mime emerging from the rainforest and then chasing down and boarding a train. Lift the invisible heavy suitcase and put it in an overhead bin. It might fall out a few times before you get it up there for good, like it does in Keith’s mime!

In this video, Keith and Sharon demonstrate a few different skills and techniques used in mime and pantomime, and then lead us through two different scenes using the skills they taught. If you want to go even further, think about these questions: 

• Try the tug-of-war pantomime with a friend or family member. How is it different having someone else on the end of the invisible rope? Is it difficult to coordinate your movements so that it looks like you are holding onto the same rope?
• Can you create your own mimed scene, like the tug-of-war? It might help to start with an activity that is part of your routine - it’s easier to mime something that you have done many times!
• Can you create your own narration mime, acting out an original scene while narrating what is happening? You can also have a friend or family member narrate what is happening if you’d like!
• Can you think of any ways you use or have used mime or pantomime in your life? Do you use it to communicate with others, or to teach or learn things?

Accessibility

Don't forget that you can turn on "Closed Captioning" to view the YouTube video with English captions.

More about the Teaching Artist

The Chameleons, also known as Keith Berger and Sharon Diskin, are professional mime theatre artists and arts educators based in Los Angeles, California. Keith and Sharon have performed for more than one million children and adults worldwide. Their focus as arts educators is primarily aimed at K-12 students and their teachers. The Chameleons’ mission is to impart the magical storytelling aspects of this ancient art form —and, in doing so, capture the imaginations of a new generation and teach them how to create performed work that is at once vivacious, resonant, and beautiful.

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