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Happy New Year!
I hope you had beautiful and uplifting holidays. I had my first week off from this blog writing since last summer, and had truly relaxing, aromatic, and delicious week!
Today, I will write about the most essential topic in Mime called: "Off the Clock". This term refers to the speed a Mime moves during a performance.
Etienne Decroux once said, "If you are moving in real time, you aren't doing mime."
Consequently, this subject will encompass many elements I have previously written about including Musicianship, Compression of Time, Expanding Thought, and Throwing Thoughts.
I will describe how the speed of "Mime Time" differs from "Real Time" and how the public is rarely aware of this fact. Furthermore, how a Mime performer sets up an on-stage speed that "seems real" but isn't at all and this is why this subject is often the most overlooked part of our art form. (At the end of this article I have listed several mime plays where this is easy to see this effect in action.)
What is "Off the Clock"? – Elastic and Irregular Time Speeds
"Clocking" or "Off the Clock"
When a Mime is moving in "Real Time", we call it "Clocking." It is a critical term that we do not like to hear someone say about our performance or have to say to one of our students. However, there are several ways to change a "Clocking" phrase into an "Off the Clock" phrase and in today’s article I will focus on these methods.
First of all:
Contrary to how reliably the hands on a clock move, a great mime performance consists of only elastically expanded moments i.e., slower than real time, and squarely compressed moments, i.e., faster than real time. A mime performance should be as far from a "metronome" as possible. (A Metronome is the object that musicians use to stay on time, on the beat.)
The Effect of being "Off the Clock"
As a result, only the moments (of thoughts and activities) that are chosen to be expanded will naturally grab attention of the audience. In other words, "Off the Clock" gives the audience a perfect guide for where to focus and on which information to follow.
The more your "Off the Clock" speed is unreliably distorted, the more expressive and dreamlike your performance quality will get. Often we say that when you are off the clock the quality of the air changes in the theater. And more importantly, this enables the performer's projected thoughts to become "Off the Clock".
"Coiling" to Enhance "Off the Clock"
Here is a great way to enhance the quality of "Off the Clock" rhythm, and make the texture of "Mime Time" mesmerizing. I have been watching Gregg and learning this technique more enthusiastically than any other techniques.
In short, the more coiled your body parts are, the better control you gain for the richer rhythm of "Off the Clock". To understand what I mean here by "coiling", try to imagine that your “whole body” functions as the left hand of a violinist.
Another way to explain "Coiling"
Coiling is a complex body tension control. Imagine your whole body is a string instrument like a guitar or violin, and you have many strings lining on your whole body in many directions. Those strings are naturally loose. In order to tighten your strings, you lengthen various parts of your body to make the strings tight. While you lengthen them, you can rotate and incline some parts to make your body three dimensional and even more tense. The body part gets tense and elongated while coiling, and gets numb and slightly shrunk while uncoiling and searching for the next directions to go coiling. Training of proper "Coiling" needs an experienced trainer.
For more step by step introductory technical guidance for "Coiling", please read my previous article:
http://gmi4mimesupport.blogspot.com/2013/08/how-to-play-big-and-reach-your-audience.html
Gregg once explained to me that his style is primarily based on the Marceau Grammar, but heavily influenced by the style of Stefan Niedzialkowski. He explained that during the time he was studying the style and suspension of Marceau, he was also studying with Niedzialkowski (since 1982.) He spoke of how Stefan's style of coiling uses more rotations, and contraction-expansions. Over time these styles merged and became a unique blend of Marceau, Decroux and Niedzialkowski.
Irregular Breath-like rhythm of "coiling" and "uncoiling" naturally generate layers of elastic resistance throughout your body. And the resistance itself physically slows down our thoughts and movements, i.e., enables you to exploit strong thoughts (of "High Points") without freezing. That is a very effective way to control and enhance the quality of "Off the Clock" rhythm.
Below are a few photos Gregg chose to help you see an Off the Clock moment in progress.
Gregg stated that the best way to "see" Off the Clock, or how the Air seems Transformed or Distilled in a photograph is to look for how the body is in "motion" but the "thought" seems to be paused, or in a slower time than the body.
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| Marcel Marceau |
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| Marcel Marceau Photo by Gregg Goldston |
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| Gregg Goldston |
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| Gregg Goldston |
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| Gregg Goldston |
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| Gregg Goldston |
"Bending the Note" - Throwing yourself into an unsteady balance point which creates "Passive" physics.
It was an eye-popping discovery for me when Gregg taught me how much he had been rolling and sliding his feet for the purpose of losing his balance point in order to create an outer layer of resistance. Around when he started showing me this technique, he started saying to me "Bend the Note, Haruka!", "Don't be careful!" , "Break the rules!" ...
It is a kind of self-created invisible outsider's force. And with that force, you intentionally make the rhythm somewhat sloppy. It is a sensation of "uncontrollable", "passive", and "playful" physics.
The term "Bending the Note" came from the guitarist Jeff Beck, our teacher of "the Musicianship", who breaks the rules in order to do his job "properly."
Adding the "Bending the Note" (occasional sloppiness or looseness you create by pushing your balance point beyond a steady zone) on top of the "Off the Clock" rhythm control by proper coiling and uncoiling. (We will again define these terms from different aspects in our following articles.) That is the coolest combination of techniques I always find in Gregg's performance style.
Please note that "Bending the Note" is a technique, which works well when you are "Off the Clock" and properly coiled. Again, "Coiling" is a body tension control, and it is equivalent to making the guitar strings properly tightened so the guitarist can "Bend the Note" to show how to break the rules every so often as "ornamental" effects, instead of a base of the texture. This sloppiness (or looseness) is created by so much force. Yes, a tactile one, like Jeff' Beck's fingers.
Gosh, I love this art, because it is so profound and whole and ever challenging like this particular one.
“I don't care about the rules. In fact, if I don't break the rules at least 10 times in every song then I'm not doing my job properly.” Jeff Beck
Below are a few photos that Gregg chose to show some extreme Note Bending.
"Once I'm onstage, I just concentrate on "bending my notes" by stretching every pose as far as it will go. I also extend my acting moments by sustaining them as long as I can, like a blues guitarist bends his strings for as long as they will ring."
-- Gregg Goldston
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| Gregg Goldston |
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| Gregg Goldston |
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| Gregg Goldston |
A few words about Mime and Mime practitioners worldwide:
Although there are different styles of movement and choreography within the art of mime globally speaking, all schools of mime utilize the Off the Clock concept as well as some form of Coiling. (Suspension as Mr. Marceau called it.)
Analyzing this in photos and videos of a broad variety of artists will help you to see it, and understand how to achieve it physically. For this reason, we are including a variety of photographs and YouTube links to start you in this research.
NOTE: Please know that the "only" reason we use so many photos of videos of Goldston and Marceau is that we have a large library of these and have the legal rights to do so. We are not doing it to push Goldston as some prime example of it all or that propose that Marceau is the top mime and so forth. We encourage you to research the work of Etienne Decroux and his students and the broad range of mime artist from Poland that came from Henryk Tomaszewski.
Mime Links:
Stefan Niedzialkowski based in Warsaw, Poland.
http://www.mimearttheatre.pl/en_stefan%20niedzialkowski.htm
Steven Wasson and Corinne Soum International School of Corporal Mime based in London, who also now run a summer project in the USA.
http://www.angefou.co.uk/
Alexander Neander & Wolfram Bodecker of “VISUAL THEATER” – Berlin, Germany
http://www.visual-theater.com/en/home/
Bartłomiej Ostapczuk, Warsaw Mime Center and International Mime Art Festival
http://www.mimecenter.eu/
C. Nicholas Johnson, Alithea Mime Theatre – Kansas, USA
http://www.alitheacreations.com/
Other Mime associates and contacts can be found at:
http://goldmime.com/contact.htm
Video Links for "Off the Clock"
Here are links to a few videos that may help you to see and understand the "Off the Clock" concept in action. There are so many more we could post, but for now, here are these, and know we will post more links with our future articles.
The Mask Maker - Collage (Marceau)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LOe65NVjzk
The Small Cafe (Marceau)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKOwuMWBfNQ
Hey, What the? (Goldston)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36fRhtJdWQ4&feature=c4-overviewvl&list=PL5AD5A1FF306E5AD2
The Chair (Goldston & Ostapczuk)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TNOWUKJJ_o&list=PL5AD5A1FF306E5AD2
Butterfly Meditation (Moriyama)
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=bCP8m73BPr0&feature=c4overview&list=UUyQWYJWZS5JHKYjVZx3pqrw
A Concert in Pantomime (Bodecker Neander)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DskloPiPsFs&list=RDGWbtGAF_gXc
Both Gregg and I will continue writing about this topic over the next few weeks, as we know that if you can truly capture this essence, it will change your work forever.
Until next Sunday!
Written by Haruka Moriyama,
with additional writings by Gregg Goldston
For more information about The Goldston Moriyama Institute for Mime, our Personal Mime Training Programs in New York City, or our Summer Mime Intensives, please contact us at the links listed below.
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