When body mime was created, the theater reformers made an observation: the body was a greatly forgotten. Only the text was important and the actor was at its service. It is in this context that body mime was born.

After two world wars, we entered a time of renewal. In the kind of theatre, the dominance of the text is questioned and space is given back to the body and the feelings.

In line with the reformers of the theater, live Vsevolod Meyerhold, Jerzy Grotowski, Gordon Craig and Jacques Copeau a group of actors is fighting for defends a theater which puts the actor, his body, at the center, its creative dynamics and places expressiveness in movement.

From the beginning of the 20th century, the search for new forms of scenic on stage language went through the quest for organicity. It is this ability to “be”; the accuracy of movement that the actor will seek in the richness of the dynamics of life. For this, the actors, like the dancers, are inspired by nature or by cultural heritage of the show such as the comedia dell’arte, the ancient Greek theater, the oriental theaters but also by practices such as yoga, or Qi Gong. Seen as the golden age of theatre, it is from these performing arts and these oriental techniques that the conditions for a creative experience are created. The actor is considered there as a “whole human”, he is freer, more autonomous, more creative, more expressive; hence he no longer works on the body and the voice but on the energies. The actor draws deep within oneself, he feels strongly but never excessively; he allows the manifestations of the living to come into him in order to introduce them into his acting.

When we talk about mime, we first think of pantomime and mime Marceau. The gestures and facial expressions are exaggerated and the narration obvious. Then comes to mind the figure of the clown or the pierrot, his face covered in white, seeking to arouse laughter. Conversely, in body mime, the body expresses a thought, the movement conveys a poetry and it is recognizable by its technique. Etienne Decroux has built up a whole corporeal language that allows him to introduce drama and a certain aesthetic into his creations. To create his pieces, he draws a lot of inspiration from statuary, everyday gestures but also the body movements of workers. The work of the neutral mask, which he discovered with Jacques Copeau, also inspired him a lot.

The neutral mask allows the actor to bring out the core of the human nature. It creates a void that allows us to welcome a presence in the world. The actor truly feels within him the outside world and the other in front of him. He abandons the pretense and the limits of his self. For Copeau, the actor should rediscover his childlike spirit, this ability to marvel and play with availability, invention and imagination. From there can then emerge creative spontaneity.