Konnichiwa! I’m writing these words in the middle of Shibuya, Tokyo – one of the craziest places on earth. And that’s the reason why I can’t write too much right now. I still have to see, hear, breath and experience what’s happening around me. Constantly. It’s massive! Hard to describe. Going to Tokyo was my biggest dream in life. And last year, a friend called me and asked, if I’m interested to help making a science fiction movie in this city. I was speechless. Then, the tragic Fukushima incident stopped all plans for one year. But here I am, in the middle of Shibuya, Tokyo – producing an impassioned indie film with a bunch of damn cool people. And believe me, I would love to continue writing for hours now. About the city, about our film called FONOTUNE, about me already doing mime performances here, about speed, differences, food, customs, prog-rock, about meeting old friends & about new ones. But there simply is no time right now. Time is running twice as fast over here. So, I’m sure I will come back with some adventurous stories. Until then, just follow me on Facebook and enjoy these pics I took. Arigato!

… I’m just still occupied fighting evil unicorns. I’LL BE BACK SOON (after saving mankind) !!

Mark Jenkins is an American artist based in Washington, DC. Since 2003, he has been creating lifelike installations using a unique, cheap and pretty ingenious technique to assemble realistic clones of himself that he then sets up in different places in all over the world, often in a very provocative, sometimes even disturbing way. All he needs is some plastic wrap and some box sealing tape. There is also a special website that’s showing you how it’s done. The result is nothing short of brilliant. Just scroll down and have a look at some of his best works. And after arriving at the bottom of this post, after sharing, liking and leaving a comment, make sure to head over to Mark’s homepage to see many more of his fantastic installations. He even set up a fake living statue at THE European street-walkers’ patch for acts like these – Las Ramblas in Barcelona – and he obviously made quite some money (click the title image for a video). Now, enjoy the pictures. And to all my real living statue friends out there: Think about it.

Just click the last image for another short video on people’s reactions. What would you do seeing a guy with his head stuck in a wall? Thanks for reading. Stay in touch.

Étienne Decroux (1898-1991) – one of the most important people in the history of contemporary theater, “father” of the modern mime/pantomime and teacher of famous mime artists like Jean-Louis Barrault and Marcel Marceau – spent nearly all his life creating and developing a subgroup of physical theater that he called mime corporel dramatique; the dramatic corporeal mime. With this article, I don’t want to explain that art form in detail (Google can help you here), I rather want to give you my personal insights on it, what I think is interesting or important.

I came in touch with corporeal mime during my time at Die Etage, a theater school in Berlin. The lessons with the fantastic teacher Oliver Pollak left a deep impression. I totally fell in love. It was like holding the manual to your body in your hands. Practicing corporeal mime was enlightening and extremely energizing. Watching it was breathtakingly beautiful. To me, corporeal mime should be the basic training for EVERY performing artist. For example, in order to express sadness an actor tends to use his voice and face. With corporeal mime all you need is a little shift within your body to attain the same (often much stronger) effect. It’s really stunning.

While classical mime is a universal and clear language for recreating the outer world with its objects and characters, corporeal mime is – mark these words – the language of your soul. As a mime artist you can give your audience a non-existent flower, mastering both languages you can give the flower in a much more interesting and beautiful way while revealing your inner feelings within that simple move. With corporeal mime the smallest actions can become absolutely mesmerizing. Decroux even went as far as to cover the face of the actor and thus created the statuaire mobile – a moving (in multiple senses) statue inspired by the sculptural works of Rodin.

Corporeal mime is a language with a clear grammar; easy to learn, hard to master. You can compare it to chess – a few rules, endless possibilities. Its form is complemented by rhythm (pause, hesitation, resistance and surprise), shift of balance and weight and – most important – presence; another fact of corporeal mime that I really love. It teaches you to completely BE on stage, to conquer the attention, every last drop of it, to be 100% aware of yourself. From there, every tiny action has the power to move a mountain, to cut steel like a laser. There is a huge difference between being on stage and being on stage thanks to Étienne Decroux. And the audience will recognize it immediately.

To slowly come to an end: I love corporeal mime. And if you are slightly interested in any kind of physical theater, dance or theater in general, I suggest you to take at least one course in your life. There are also schools out there (Google is helping again) focussing solely on corporeal mime. And if you are living in Berlin right now and have some basic experiences in physical theater, note this: Together with Oliver Pollak (I have to repeat myself: a fantastic teacher) and my mime colleague Stefan Wabner I have been organizing a regular corporeal mime class at the mime centrum every Tuesday at 8 PM. For more information just drop me a line. It’s great to practice in a group keeping Decroux’s brainchild alive and even developing it further.

~ left video: a typical corporeal mime class | right video: Katja Tannert an me in a corporeal mime performance ~

To slowly come to an end, part two: I am working on my very own corporeal mime act right now and I’m already very excited to present a personal take on this wonderful art form. Watch out for SEELE, coming in 2012. In the meantime: If you like this article, don’t hesitate to share it, to leave a comment, to go to the theater more often (movie theaters don’t count) and to hug the next mime artist you meet. It could be me giving you an invisible flower. Thanks for reading.

PS: As with all instruments, playing it doesn’t mean the music sounds good right away. While searching for videos to embed here, I realized that there are a lot of corporeal mime performances I absolutely don’t like, mostly because I find them to be too abstract, too self-centered, completely ignoring the audience and the rules of a good dramatic composition. One reason more to give it a try myself and prove the opposite. So, stay tuned.

When creating my promotional material, I like to try out new things like the recently produced customizable sticker. People’s reactions on stuff they haven’t seen before is remarkable and they will remember you and your work a lot better, if you can impress with original ideas. The pic above is showing the design of one of my two latest marketing items: the metroccolis Friend Card. I want to use it as a business card. Everything is on there: a picture of my act, the web address (nowadays, people will ALWAYS check your website first before calling you or sending you an email) and some info text. What makes this card special is a) that it’s made out of plastic – like a credit card – so you really won’t throw it away that easily. And b) it get’s quite some personality in speaking directly to the owner who is becoming a member of a nonexistent club. Right now, it’s in production and I can’t wait to receive and hand out the real thing.

During walkabout performances, it’s really easy to spread flyers since we are in direct touch with the spectators. And until now, we always handed out general flyers or postcards we still got in stock. But some days ago, I fell in love with the idea to give our audiences something special, a tiny card that says THANK YOU, since we are seriously thankful for every person that is enjoying our work. Et voilà, the flyer you see above was born. As a special reward for curious people, a QR Code on the back leads to a secret website called Hidden Place where I want to put periodically changing goodies for download like wallpapers, photos, vouchers for shirts etc. And in addition, this card is also a sticker. Again, I can’t wait to give this thingy away while doing the robot bow of respect.

Today and thanks to the world wide wonderland, it’s pretty cheap and easy to create your own personal advertisement. So let your imagination run wild and surprise the people around you. Worst case: they will remember. Likely case: they will remember with a smile. Nothing to lose here. Go-Go-Gadgetvertisement!

Now, forget what I wrote above. Because a little while ago, David struck again and created my new favorite animated short. THE EXTERNAL WORLD is just another masterpiece packed with brilliant, crazy and hilarious ideas. Pure madness, pure genius. And I love it as much as its predecessor and find myself watching it over and over again. It’s that brilliant. But see for yourselves. Hit play for 17 minutes that will overwhelm you:

I can’t wait to see what’s coming next out of David’s twisted brain. He absolutely shows that there is still a vast unknown terrain to explore around the well-trodden paths we love to run along every day. And if you have a favorite piece of animation, please let me and my readers know in the comments. Or an invisible mime hand will slap the back of your head.

I just finished the novel Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami. After reading the last sentence, I closed the book (a real one) and sat there – absolutely speechless. I love these moments; sometimes seconds, sometimes minutes or even hours. Brilliant artistic work can make that happen. And all my life, I’m searching for these moments. It’s hard to describe, but extremely wonderful to experience. It’s kind of the first raw and intuitive reaction of your inner self after a new terrific exploration. Cheap entertainment is easy, getting truly touched needs something special. That’s the difference of art and great art for me. Be it a song, a photograph, a movie, a theater performance – if it makes me speechless, it’s a winner and won’t leave my memory ever again. The aproach can be completely different. Sometimes it’s the emotion overwhelming you, sometimes it’s messing with your brain showing you ideas you’ve never thought of. I think, it’s about going further, about art being brave, not in a sense of being abstract just for the strangeness sake (that often fails anyway), rather than unfolding a deep connection of artist and his/her work. If somebody puts all his/her unique skills, ripe thoughts, deep feelings and personal dedication into a project, you are able to experience it. And in the best case, it leaves you in awe breathing the enchantment that just struck you. Again, I love these moments, it’s like a drug that makes you try to constantly find better songs, better movies, better books. And the good news, they are out there waiting for you to get discovered.

Of course, it’s always a matter of taste. And the stuff I love could be something you totally hate. But I also believe that some of these masterpieces out there reach beyond the borders of taste and have got the power to inspire everyone equally.

For me as a performing artist this topic is even a double sided win-win medal. Directly after a show, there is sometimes a short silent gap between the end of my performance and the applause. For a tiny moment, the audience is spreechless. Emotion is continuing to have an effect, coming back to reality takes a little while. This moment is pure magic and means as much to me as the cheers afterwards, which then – in reverse – make me speechless. Or to loosely quote The Lion King: It’s the circle of love. And believe me, that’s quite some motivation to create even more beautiful works.

Since good stuff needs to be shared, please tell me your favorite artistic creations? What made you speechless, touched you deeply, stole your breath and fucked your brain? Here is an example that gets me every single time I listen to it: James Blake’s The Wilhelm Scream (brilliant name for all in the know). Quite reduced, yet extremely personal, extremely sad & extremely beautiful. Enjoy.

After reading this post, watching the video and leaving a comment (which wouldn’t make me speechless but very happy), please get yourself a copy of Murakami’s book I mentioned at the beginning. Taste aside, it’s incredible. Trust me.

On December 07th, I had the pleasure to fly to Thailand for two weeks together with my metroccolis colleague and best friend Stefan Wabner. We were invited to perform on two street theater festivals – Street Show Bangkok and Street Show Phuket. And although I’m already back home for more than a week, I still feel blown away by all these fantastic impressions, happenings and audiences. I seriously had the best time of my life and all I can say now is: I want to go back, be part of this temporary paradise again in 2011.

Festival

We brought our Man Machines walkabout to the festivals and as you can see in the pics, they were a crowd magnet. Sometimes it was hard to move, since we were surrounded by all these wonderful, extremely friendly and curious people. Especially the kids loved our robots and our robots loved to play with these kids. Although physically it was really some hard work (it’s not easy being a decent robot at 30°C), every smile or scrutinizing touch to check whether we are human or machine, was a huge reward and extremely satisfying. But a good festival depends not only on a good audience, great artists and the fact that it takes place in the middle of paradise. What really counts is the organization. And here I have to shout out a big thanks to the whole team of Sixnature (the agency behind these festivals), especially to wonderful Parn who invited us, thanks to all the staff members who did a terrific job and a special thanks to our two personal translators, helpers and photographers, Pong and Jib. The organization was absolutely stunning: beautiful street signs and magazines, information points everywhere, great drinks and food supply, a huge amount of helpers, everything was there and everything went like a clockwork. Just perfect and very impressive.

Free time

Of course, we also had a lot of free time and in these hours Thailand did everything it could to make me fall in love with it. I could spend days on listing all the countless wonderful details and tiny wonders, but here are the top 6 of things I totally got addicted to:

1. Coconut water – my personal juice of life, so pure and simple yet the best thing in the world
2. Food stalls – which are everywhere and offer oh so delicious and spicy (sometimes really spicy) Thai food ranging from superb soups and fried rice to fresh sea food, true fact: prawns are a mime’s best friend
3. Mentality – I fell in love with the zen way of life: never loud, angry or hectic and always with a smile
4. Massages – a massage a day keeps the doctor away aka it just takes an hour and 3-7 € to heaven
5. Weather – if I could choose between the current -20 °C and winter in Thailand… you know where to find me
6. People – of course, this depends on who you get to know, but I was lucky to meet a bunch of truly fantastic guys and girls who made my stay a pleasure filled with silly jokes, great parties and true friendships

Artists

A festival is always a great opportunity to meet new colleagues and old friends. This time, we got in touch with some cool kangaroos from Australia (Icarus), a funny street mime from Japan (Kazu), a fantastic magician from the US (Steve Marshall) and a highly entertaining Canadian street artist (Jeremy Eaton), strange and very curious aliens from planet Bavaria (foolpool), a mesmerizing old German elephant (PasParTouT), an international herd of fantasy antilopes (Teatro Pavana) and many more. They all did a fantastic and very unique job and behind every mask and every costume there is a wonderful person. I hope to see them all again at another festival somewhere in the world. Also a big thanks to Ulrich Gottlieb (LOOP-ART), a mime friend who has been spending his winters in Bangkok for 8 years now (lucky bastard), teaching physical theater and Taiji. He showed us some great places and a fantastic view over the city. It was a blast.

Let pictures speak

As mentioned, I could go on writing hours and hours about how great it was. But I guess you already got the picture. I would rather let some photos do the work now which show you snapshots of our performances. And let me begin with a very special photo. Look at this. It’s my point of view during work. Don’t I have the best job in the world?