Mime denken: Nederlandse mime als manier van denken in en door de theaterpraktijk

Abstract

In this thesis Marijn de Langen details the development of modern Dutch mime, a performative practice that took shape in the 1960s and made a radical break with the traditional mime/pantomime idiom under the direct influence of the French mime innovator Etienne Decroux. It was in Paris of the 1930s that Decroux first developed corporeal mime, a modernist interpretation of the genre that went on to gain an international following. Among them were the Dutch students of Decroux who worked under him in Paris in the 1950s and 60s and brought corporeal mime back to the Netherlands, where, in their own work, they gave a distinctive and anarchic twist to their mentor’s ideas. In so doing, they laid the foundations for the development of modern Dutch mime, the subject of this thesis. The Dutch mime tradition has received scant attention either from the field of theatre studies or within the professional practice itself. This absence of reflection on Dutch mime contrasts starkly with its important position on the Dutch theatre landscape. From the 1960s to the present day, Dutch mime has disrupted and innovated theatre practice, domestically and internationally. As a discipline, it has been central to a number of home-grown theatrical genres, including locatietheater (site-specific performance), bewegingstheater (movement theatre), landschapstheater (landscape theatre) and ervaringstheater (experiential performance). In the four chapters comprising this thesis, De Langen sets out the development of four fundamental paradigms associated with the practice and performance of Dutch mime: ‘using the body as an instrument’ (chapter 1), ‘physical stillness’ (chapter 2), ‘making space visible’ (chapter 3), and ‘the Below Zero principle’ (chapter 4). They played a crucial role in the development of Dutch mime in the 1960s, and they underlie its practice to this day. This thesis shows how these ideas have evolved within and through mime-making practice, with illustrated examples from specific performances and sources. Extensive research of source material underpins the three methodological instruments De Langen has devised for the purposes of study. The first is to engage with mime in terms of a mode of thought. De Langen argues that it is in and through mime practice that modes of thought around performance and performance-making becomes manifest. The second methodological instrument that is being used in this study is the assumption of a crucial and ongoing dynamic between Dutch mime thinking and the legacy of Decroux. De Langen shows that Dutch mime should be viewed as corporeal mime with a Dutch ‘twist’. The third and final methodological instrument is the use of the ‘Zero’ concept in this study. Following in the tradition of Mieke Bal, De Langen uses Zero as a searchlight, an indispensable tool in the effort to identify particular lines of mime thinking, and also to clarify them, make them transparent, and, most importantly of all, connect them.