London International Mime Festival – Barbican

Two very enjoyable yet very different performances at London’s Barbican theatre have me asking – what is mime, anyway?

Ok Tell Me – What Is Mime, Anyway?

If this is a question I’m having to ask myself, then the London International Mime Festival seems like a good place to start. Although on the other hand, it may have been seeing what was on at the Festival – the range of performances that I maybe wouldn’t have categorised as mime, that had me wondering. You mean it’s not just people with faces painted white, acting out scenes?

Certainly not, if we are to believe LIMF directors Helen Lannaghan and Joseph Seelig. According to the Festival’s website:

London International Mime Festival (LIMF) is an established, annual festival of contemporary visual theatre. Essentially wordless and multi-disciplinary, its programme embraces circus-theatre, puppetry/animation, object theatre, mime, live art and physical theatre.

About Us – mimelondon

And what’s more, LIMF has been going since 1977, across a host of London venues. Clearly I’ve been living under a rock: there has been mime all around me for the whole decade-plus since I moved to London, and I have failed to see it. But thankfully in 2022, after a Covid-related pause, LIMF is back. The Barbican was my way into it, as some events on their calendar caught my eye. But knowing now that this is a thing, and that there were many other events I missed through not checking the LIMF website earlier, I will be ready to go in 2023.

A First Foray Into Mime

So I am a mime novice. I chose two performances for myself as part of LIMF 2022, both ones I had spotted at the Barbican. They couldn’t have been more different. I firstly saw aSH, a beautiful perfomance by Compagnie 111 with dancer Shantala Shivalingappa which I barely have the words to describe. A week later I saw Stellaire by Stereoptik, a love story set in a magic lantern world.

What they both embodied, to go back to the definition above, is visual theatre. Strikingly visual, with images that will stay with me for some time. And I think that is the point – mime doesn’t have to be wordless storytelling in a narrow sense. LIMF brings together performances which don’t rely on words but rather on boundary-pushing creativity to create an experience which is primarily visual.

I’m definitely a convert. This may be the very definition of a First World Problem, but I go to the theatre and to other performances so often that sometimes I crave something new. It can be hard to find these unusual treasures of the theatre world, but is almost always worth the effort. And, like Family Tree which I saw at the Greenwich + Docklands International Festival, festivals do a lot of work to bring really innovative, interesting works to their audiences. I wonder what other mailing lists are out there for me to join?

But anyway, without further ado, let’s take a look at the two performances I managed to catch as part of LIMF 2022.

aSH – Compagnie 111

If I needed to expand my horizons on what mime could be, I don’t think I could have done better than aSH, by Compagnie 111 and featuring dancer Shantala Shivalingappa. How to describe it? Well, dance features heavily. But it’s not just a dance piece. There’s also technology. And percussion. And beautiful images created in ash and just as quickly destroyed.

Compagnie 111 are based in Toulouse. They create physical and visual theatre with a focus on scenography. This is the third and final installment in a series of solo works for unique female dancers. And what a dancer they have in Shantala Shivalingappa! Shivalingappa was born in Madras and has spent much of her life between there and Paris. She is trained in the classical Indian Kuchipudi style. She has worked with Pina Bausch, Peter Brook and others, won awards for her dancing, and is a choreographer as well.

A Cycle of Death And Birth

aSH is very much led by Shivalingappa’s performance. Her control and precision is incredible as she dances for approximately an hour in a series of scenes. But as I mentioned above, aSH isn’t just a dance piece. It’s also about the sound, technology, and percussion by Loïc Schild. It opens with Shivalingappa against a screen made of – I don’t even know what. Some sort of material with an incredible texture, strength and ability to make sounds. Like an ASMR dream. The screen billows and moves, seemingly at the dancer’s command. Then it extends down onto the floor.

In the following scenes Shivalingappa moistens it (with oil?) and spreads ash over it. She creates a mandala, for want of a better term, with movements of her feet. I don’t think a compass could draw a circle with greater precision. When the screen is lifted once more, the design falls away, and Shivalingappa moves through and manipulates the remaining ash. It ends with her consumed by/wrapped in the screen like a blanket or a large cocoon. The technology which created the gusts of air – and, alongside Schild, was responsible for the percussion – is revealed in all its technological glory. Classical dance and machine age creativity side by side. I told you it was hard to put words to.

What it is, however, is incredible. It was absolutely entrancing. I haven’t heard such a big audience reaction for a long time. There were brief moments when I was ready to move onto the next scene, but I could have watched the performance unfold for hours.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 4.5/5

aSH now finished as part of LIMF 2022

Stellaire – Stereoptik

If aSH was mythical and cosmic and expansive, then Stellaire was all of those things but in a sense that was both bigger- and smaller-scale at the same time. Stereoptik, comprised of Romain Bermond and Jean-Baptiste Maillet, create live cinema using a range of techniques I’m going to broadly categorise as ‘magic lantern’. By this I mean that they project images onto a central screen, comprised of cut-outs, sand, paper, chalk, paint and more. Plus there is live music. Stereoptik have participated in LIMF before, but this is the first outing here for Stellaire.

As the title may indicate, Stellaire is about the stars. At least partly. There are two stories intertwined – one is a cute boy meets girl romance, and one is about the nature of the life, the universe and everything. And I know this, because Stellaire does not meet the narrow definition of mime as being silent. There is plenty of narration. It’s just that this is almost secondary – the main event are the images and worlds that Bermond and Maillet conjure up.

As a piece of “contemporary visual theatre”, Stellaire is top notch. Your main dilemma will be whether to watch what’s on screen, or watch how they’re making it. I tried a bit of both and enjoyed myself immensely.

So Again, Is This Mime?

I would have to say yes, in the sense that Stellaire is not Bermond and Maillet putting themselves at the centre of the performance. And it’s not about the story that is told through words. It’s about enormous creativity bring a story to life visually. And that, to me, certainly sounds like mime.

My partner and I both enjoyed Stellaire immensely. It is educational. It pushes the boundaries of the possible. Definitely whimsical (in a style that is perhaps quite French?). And just a lot of fun. My favourite bit was the dance party in space, which is not a sentence I thought I was going to utter going into LIMF. Judging from the sold-out and enthusiastic crowd, many others were having just as much fun as I was.

So I guess the message is that there are wonderful, creative, unusual shows out there if you take the time to look at them. Some come via festivals like LIMF, and there are probably others that I need to ferret out. Stereoptik were a wonderful discovery, and I can’t wait to see what next year’s festival has in store!

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 4/5

Stellaire on as part of LIMF until 5 February 2022