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Research Seminar: Reclaiming mime from the condescension of posterity

This seminar will be presented in the form of a performative conversation between Mark and Simon around the themes, ideas, perceptions, contexts, personalities, histories and controversies enshrined in their recently published book, Mime into Physical Theatre: a UK Cultural History 1970 – 2000. They will consider why this period can justifiably lay claim to be highly significant in the development of embodied theatre practices in the UK, initially signed as mime but, increasingly by the 1990s, as physical or visual theatre. A moment – or moments – when the radical movements of the late ‘60s and ‘70s met Thatcherism and the early seeds of neo-liberalism. They will reflect on how and why mime as a perceived practice has often been the object of derision or disdain from both the university sector and – in a different way – within popular culture. Mark and Simon will consider the complex cultural conditions which framed and gave rise to these practices, and some of the key figures (both artists and other cultural workers) and organisations involved in performing and enabling this work.

Drawing upon their own experiences as professional performers and theatre makers in the 1980s and ‘90s, and later as academics, they will offer a blend of analysis, history, personal stories and documentation in relation to mime and its bastard and unruly child, physical theatre. Their conversation will reflect on the intersections between gender, class, sexuality and race in the making and performing of this work, the significance of often heated debates about training for mime and physical theatre and the reasons for the campaigning zeal of mime activists in the late ‘70s and ‘80s in Scotland, Wales and across the UK, including the South West. They will particularly identify organisations such as the Mime Action Group (MAG), the International Workshop Festival (IWF), the Scottish Mime Forum (SMF), the Centre for Performance Research (CPR) and the London International Mime Festival (LIMF) as playing key roles in the shape, dramaturgies, aesthetics, promotion and cultural politics of these projects and activities. Together, the authors will take a passionate but critically reflective glance at the heterogeneous range of embodied performance practices which have had huge influence on theatre making into the 21st century and to the present day.

Mark Evans is Professor of Theatre Training at Coventry University. He has written widely on movement, actor training and physical theatre. His publications include: Movement Training for the Modern Actor; Jacques Copeau; Frantic Assembly (with Mark Smith); Performance, Movement and the Body; The Routledge Companion to Jacques Lecoq (with Rick Kemp); and a critical introduction to The Moving Body by Jacques Lecoq.

Simon Murray is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow, having retired from teaching contemporary theatre and performance last October. He was co-founder/co-editor (with Jonathan Pitches) of the Theatre, Dance and Performance Training journal and has been a professional theatre practitioner. He was Director of Theatre at Dartington College of Arts between 2004 and 2008. His disparate writings include publications on Jacques Lecoq, physical theatres, lightness, WG Sebald, performances in ruins and democratic education in the Seychelles.