Thomas Leabhart | |
---|---|
Born | 1944 (age 79–80) |
Occupation(s) | Mime, teacher, author |
Employer | Pomona College |
Thomas Leabhart (born 1944) is an American corporeal mime and corporeal mime teacher. [1] [2]
Leabhart studied at the Ecole de Mime Etienne Decroux, Paris under the instruction of master mime and teacher Etienne Decroux from 1968 to 1972. He currently performs and teaches regularly in France and has performed and taught workshops at the Museum of Design in Zürich, The Austrian Theatre Museum in Vienna, the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, the American Center in Montevideo, Movement Theatre International in Philadelphia, and many other venues. He is editor of Mime Journal and has authored over 35 articles. He is resident artist and professor of theatre at Pomona College in Claremont, California, [3] and continues to publish translations of Decroux's writings and methods in English.
Leabhart is the most published writer on the subject of Corporeal Mime—chronicling its rise and development in the modern theatre and is closely associated with the International School of Theatre Anthropology (ISTA). He is also the author of one of the standard works on modern mime, Modern and Post-Modern Mime (Macmillan in London and St. Martin's Press, NYC). In it, Leabhart explains that modern mime, a major creative art form in recent years, has its roots in the work Jacques Copeau did at the Ecole de Vieux-Colombier in Paris in the 1920s. Copeau looked to remedy the 'ills of the theater' by turning to the golden ages of Greek theater, Noh, Kabuki, Elizabethan theatre and Commedia dell'arte. In his classes (one of which, called 'corporeal mime,' inspired Etienne Decroux to develop the mime technique of the same name), Copeau emphasized the expressive potential of the actor's whole body, rather than the voice, hands and face (though his actors trained to use those, as well). Leabhart examines the contributions of Decroux, Jean-Louis Barrault, Marcel Marceau, and Jacques Lecoq to the development of this new form.
Marcel Marceau was a French mime artist and actor most famous for his stage persona, "Bip the Clown". He referred to mime as the "art of silence", performing professionally worldwide for more than 60 years.
Jacques Copeau was a French theatre director, producer, actor, and dramatist. Before he founded the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris, he wrote theatre reviews for several Parisian journals, worked at the Georges Petit Gallery where he organized exhibits of artists' works and helped found the Nouvelle Revue Française in 1909, along with writer friends, such as André Gide and Jean Schlumberger.
Physical theatre is a genre of theatrical performance that encompasses storytelling primarily through physical movement. Although several performance theatre disciplines are often described as "physical theatre", the genre's characteristic aspect is a reliance on the performers' physical motion rather than, or combined with, text to convey storytelling. Performers can communicate through various body gestures.
Jean-Louis Bernard Barrault was a French actor, director and mime artist who worked on both screen and stage.
Jacques Lecoq was a French stage actor and acting movement coach. He was best known for his teaching methods in physical theatre, movement, and mime which he taught at the school he founded in Paris known as École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq. He taught there from 1956 until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1999.
École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq is a school of physical theatre previously located on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. In May of 2023 the school announced its departure from Paris and relocation to Avignon, where its next season training would commence that autumn.
Étienne Decroux was a French actor who studied at Jacques Copeau's École du Vieux-Colombier, where he saw the beginnings of what was to become his life's obsession–corporeal mime. During his long career as a film and theatre actor, he created many pieces, using the human body as the primary means of expression.
A mimeartist, or simply mime, is a person who uses mime, the acting out of a story through body motions without the use of speech, as a theatrical medium or as a performance art. In earlier times, in English, such a performer would typically be referred to as a mummer. Miming is distinguished from silent comedy, in which the artist is a character in a film or skit without sound.
Daniel Andrew Stein is an American modern performer of a type of physical theater known as corporeal mime.
Suzanne Bing was a French actress. She was a founding member of Jacques Copeau's Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris during the first season 1913-14. Later she worked with the troupe in New York from 1917–19 and again in Paris, 1920-24.
Charles Dullin was a French actor, theater manager and director.
Corporeal mime is an aspect of physical theater whose objective is to place drama inside the moving human body, rather than to substitute gesture for speech as in pantomime.
Tony Montanaro (1927-2002) was a 20th-century American mime artist.
Theatre de l'Ange Fou is a theatre company based in London, England. Its artistic directors are Steven Wasson and Corinne Soum. It was created in Paris in 1984 and relocated to London in 1995. It was co-founded with the International School of Dramatic Corporeal Mime, formerly known as the Ecole de Mime Corporel Dramatique, a theatre school that teaches corporeal mime.
Ingemar Lindh is a theatre director and pedagogue.
Steven Wasson, is the director of Theatre de l'Ange Fou, and the International School of Corporeal mime. He studied literature and drama at the University of Northern Colorado with Dr. Lloyd Norton, and mime with Dr. E. Reid Gilbert and Thomas Leabhart at the Valley Studio in Madison, Wisconsin. Coming to Paris, he was a student of Étienne Decroux and later became his assistant, participating in Decroux's teaching, research and creations. Decroux created two pieces on Wasson: Le Prophete and Le Duo dans le Parc St. Cloud. Wasson has created and directed all of the plays for the Theatre de l’Ange Fou, and has performed in many of them. He has worked as an actor in film, TV and live radio in the U.S. and France. In 1996, he reconstructed and directed the mime scenes for the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Les Enfants du Paradis. He has also worked with Birmingham Repertory Theatre and in India with the Avatar Meher Baba Theatre. As the director of Shadow Films Ltd., Wasson creates artistic and pedagogical films for the company and the school.
Vahram Zaryan is a French performance artist, mime, dancer, director, and choreographer of Armenian descent.
Jim Moore is an American photographer who has documented the variety arts since the 1970s. His photographs helped Philippe Petit plan his tightrope-walking stunt between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1974 and were prominently featured in the Oscar-winning film Man on Wire.
Stanisław Brzozowski is a Polish mime artist.
Bari Rolfe was an American dancer, choreographer, mime artist, and educator. Rolfe studied mime in Paris, and beginning in the 1960s taught it at University of California, Los Angeles, California State University, Northridge, and University of Washington in Seattle. She wrote several books on mime.