ABSTRACT
After perusing the first three chapters of this book, the reader will understand the impossibility of learning Corporeal Mime without a qualified teacher and years of daily lessons. Even with the detailed written instructions and drawings in this chapter, you will find it impossible to approximate Corporeal Mime’s “music” – a rhythm of cause and effect, of shock and resonance, a lively vibrato – which a teacher can only communicate in person. Despite Decroux’s proficiency in writing and speaking, his creation, Corporeal Mime, like Chinese opera, biomechanics, and the Noh play, remains a detailed and specifically kinesthetic art. Decroux often joked that Corporeal Mime was “easy to do poorly.”
