HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN MIME?
As a senior at Brandeis University I took a course on ‘Mime and Body Movement’. I ended up performing the lead in an anti-war skit at our graduation. A photo of the event came out in a national magazine (Life), and the performance was also featured on television. I soon decided that performing was better than driving a taxi and created a show. I started out performing for hearing-impaired audiences and then added colleges.
WHAT WAS IT ABOUT MIMES SILENCE THAT SPOKE TO YOU?
What drew me to mime wasn’t the silence, but that it became an outlet for creative expression.
HOW HAS YOUR WORK CHANGED AND/OR BEEN CHANGED BY YOU OR THE WORLD?
I started out doing classical mime programs with white face and all that. Around the same time I also became a T.M. teacher, married Sharon and was doing both teaching meditation and performing. We moved around a lot for a couple of decades and ended up in Iowa. Sharon went to college and I decided to perform full time. In order to do this I needed to expand my audience to schools, theaters, festivals etc. So I learned magic illusions, puppetry, improvisational skills, and added interactive audience participation pieces. I went through booking agencies for a couple of years and I traveled the midwest and west presenting 12-15 programs a week mostly in schools to a variety of age groups. I adapted my program for each audience and venue and then started booking myself. Over time I created educational assembly and residence programs in creative dramatics, personal character development, bullying, state history plays, as well as health.
I’ve always loved using my skills to connect with young audiences and teach in an artistic way that inspires and affirms. Mime opened the door for me to learn a variety of ways to do this.
HOW DOES YOUR WORK EXPRESS YOUR AWAKENING PROCESS?
I learned to trust that if I just waited with an intention that the ideas would come. Until recently I didn’t see myself as a loving person in the way that I understood that to be. I’ve come to recognize that all of this performing and teaching was, for me, an expression of love, of connection. Now I hold what I do, and am, very differently.
YOU'VE BEEN DOIND AN HISTORICAL PLAY ABOUT IOWA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS FOR MANY YEARS. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM THAT EXPERIENCE?
I wrote a play about Iowa’s history in 1996 because it was the state’s 150th birthday and grants were available for artists to celebrate it. I took the historical information from text books and wrote scenes which I would narrate and students would act out. I put in a lot of movement and action. It’s a very generic play to give students a feel for what it was like to be alive in the Midwest around 150 years ago, and to allow them to perform in front of parents and friends. I’ve presented the play over 500 times in four states with many schools doing it every year. I really love watching some shy or difficult kids get into performing and come alive. Be heroes.
It’s becoming more common for parents to come up to me after a performance and tell me that they were in my play when they were in the fourth grade. They all remember their parts. How cool is that...we create our own history. (see History play brochure)
WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU LIKE US TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR LIFE AS A PERFORMER?
There was a certain synchronicity in the way everything unfolded. I felt great support and connection at every step where one impulse would just lead to the next. The whole thing was a gift, both to me and thru me.
