TABLE OF CONTENT
1. Introduction 2
2. Mime and the primitive man 3
3. humans as imitator 4
4. The African experience 5
5. The Greek experience 7
6. The roman experience 8
7. Medieval And Miming 9
8. Early Western Form: Comediall Dell' Arte 10
9. Early Western Form: Elizabethan England 11
10. Early Western Form: France 11
11. 20th century miming 12
12. Mime and silent films 13
13. Contemporary mime 14
14. Importance of mime 15
15. Contribution of mime to theatrical development 17
16. Conclusion 19
17. Reference 19


INTRODUCTION

The word mime means a lot to different people. for example, to a common Nigerian who does not anything about theatre, would define mime as imitation of action without words. But to the theatre artiste mime is far more than that. In general term, mime can be defined as “a means of communication, through body language and gesture”. This definition only refines on daily meaning of mime outside the theatre. To the Grecian and the Roman mime in the strict sense, a Greek and Roman dramatic entertainment representing scenes from life, often in a ridiculous manner

For instance is a mother beckons her child. According to the Microsoft Encarta dictionary a mime is “a style of performance in which people act out situations or portray characters using only gesture, facial expression, and action"
Finally in my own words, I would define a mime in relation to theatre and performance as “an art of dramatization that is based on communicating through body language and gesture” for example, twisting the face for anger, smiling etc.


MIME AND THE PRIMITIVE MAN
It would worthy of not to know that the word mime had been born with man. Right from the beginning of the word or lets take it right from the beginning of human being and civilization mime had been a part of human.
The instinct to dance, show emotion, tell stories effectively and imitate certain effects had been born with man. Even a child of five can imitate the way his mother, father, brother or sister talks.
Before the human voice developed or before the advent of spoken and written languages, the zeal to communicate in the early man had been there.
The early written form of Egyptians, the Aztecs and in the pictographic writings of the Hebrews, gestures had always been used.
Gestures and movement had helped the early man in its religious activities such s dance and ritual ceremonies and from the ancient ceremonies in China, India, Egypt, Emerges the once dancer, the mime and the singer.
To total it all, mime had been as old as human existence. It had lived in the body of a man, because every man would want to express his emotion.
In a stone carving found in India late 2007 shows a group of what looks like men, telling stories and in their midst. The story teller in this carving shows that the early man had always wanted to express his emotions by mime.
For instance for an early man to tell a good story of how he fought with animal he must make use of gestures such as sneering, jumping anger on his face and smiles to show victory over such animal.



HUMAN AS IMMITATORS
Observing from the Shakespearean statement, "the world is a stage and the men and women are merely players" this statement can than imply that man whether old or young , wants a way to express his emotion he would want to tell stories of what happened in the day and also would want to gesticulate while telling those stories.
Bernardin de St. Pierre observe mime, "it was the first long wage of man, it is know to all nations and so natural and so expressive that the children of white parents lean at rapidly when they see it used by negroes.

THE AFRICAN EXPERIENCE: CASE STUDY EKPEYE
Every African society is rich in culture. The existence of fairy tales and story telling had made the use of body language necessary to express emotion.
Also, dance, such as the Agbekor dance of Ghana tells stories of human ation at war. The Ovie afra dance of the Igbogene people is a satirical dance that deals on mime and movement of face and body.
Mime had been in existence as old as human, the African society specifically Nigeria and particularly the people of Ekpeye region have been using mime to tell stories during festivals and rituals and other celebration.
The Ekpeye is a minor ethnic group in Nigeria that speaks the language of Ekpeye. This group of people are found in rivers state and in major part of Ahoada West and the whole of Ahoada east.
Though there had been no written records about the festivities of the Ekpeye people that involve mime. But through the passage of culture by story telling and actions, parents were able to pass stories from themselves to there offspring and they have been able to transmit culture in this same process.
Most of the dances of the people that involve the telling of stories are the Okenge dance, the Okwukwu mini dance and the Artilogwu dance.
Though Artilogwu does not originate from Ekpeye but is a borrowed culture of the Igbo's. Not to be neglected is the Ekpeye tarry night which is called (ELE) where they tell stories about tortoise.
The Okenge dance, is a satirical dance: that involves dances and drumers and few story tellers. the story tellers however does not say words with their mouth.
They act stories that are sang by the singers which serve as the chorus. One of the stories that was always being told is about a famer- called Oge. In his exploits he is able to uncover many evils done by humans and evil spirits.
On one occasion, he sees a young girl called Umasoye, who became pregnant and does not know the father of the child. She had to burry her child in the bush alive. age was at the top of a palm tree. The story tellers dances and mimes every movement of every cheracters in the story.

Miming is also done during the Ele. In Ele the story tellers tells the story through song. These stories are already known to the audience, of which in most cases the audience will sing the songs while the drum playing while the story teller dances mimes to the song that is played.
THE GREEK EXPERIENCE
Theatre had been thought to have originated from religion. The early believe of the Greeks in God and goddess had led to the celebration of many gods. One of these gods is Dionysus.
In history mime had existed in Greek and their religion, and as old as theatre itself. But not withstanding, the first world recorded mime is Telestes. Telestes in Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes detached himself from the chorus (467 b c) to interpret through his rhythmic step with the song and gesticulating with his face fingers and the whole of his body, along side with the chorus song
Later words were added to match the actions; this makes the call for mime big and highly essential. Improving further, movement was also added all these mimic development help and beautificated the tragedies and comedies of the early Greek. Through mime in Greek diverged to several categories, it never moved away from dance and spoken theatre.

THE ROMAN EVPERLENCE
After Greek was conquered theater was forced to move from Greek to Rome. It might be justifiable to say that there was no mime in Rome. The Romans rejected theatre. They believed on live action, fighting of gladiators, fighting of beast, wrestling.
But it would also be unfair to say that mime does not exist in Rome. Mime existed in Rome, but drama/theatre was regarded as being for slaves, nonentities, hopeless people even there were laws forbidding that true citizens of Rome to be theatre goers.
By the time of the Christian persecution, mime were used to ridicule the christen religion. During the 15th century, something happened that put the existence of mime in question. The Roman empire was Christianized and all the mimes where excommunicated from the normal people.
MIDIEVAL AND MIMING
During the middle ages, after Rome had been divided, semi theatrical religious activities were once again revived and they became all principle mime of community celebration.
Mimes were bound to be disengaged from the society, but their activities were carried out illegally, they become street entertainers, jugglers, acrobats, jesters. At this period, the Roman theatre was deemed to have failed. One of the reason being that it had lost its seriousness and purpose. But the only one part of theater that survived was mime.
The church persecuted the mimes, they even seemed to be frustrated people. The Theodosius creed of the church forbade any mime from having the sacrament administered into them when they were at the detriment of death.
In the 2nd century AD, Tertullian Spectaculus (A church father) wrote a treaties against plays in which he said "whether the God of truth, who hates all falsehood, can be willing to receive into his kingdom, those whose age and sex, whose sighs and laughter's, love and anger are all feigned. He promises them a tragedy of their own when in the day of judgment they shall be cosigned with everlasting suffering". This statement emphasizes deeply on how the church hates street mimes and actors.
Despite the fact that the church despised theater, there were still other clergymen who supported theatre. these men the divided the mimes into three. Thomas Aquinas wrote "the office of the player as being serviceable and as not being blame worthy it the player lives an upright life". Thomas and sir Anthony supported part of the stage. They later said, the characters of the harlequin should not be represented by a clergymen nor the lurch be exhibited by the church.
If honor should be accorded to any body, then that should go to the courage's, tireless, so called vagabonds, rogues who spread themselves all over Europe, and through then, theatre had survived.
EARLY WESTERN FORM: COMEDIALL DELL' ARTE
"Comedia dell' arte means only written or improvised drama. And it implies rather the manner of performance than to subject matter of the play".
With the above opening statement we would understand that after the fall of Rome and during the Renaissances, the theatrical element that survived in the middle ages and spread all over Europe becomes the sole and relieving element that raise culture in Italy during the renaissance.
Comedia dell arte is a spoken form of theatre derived from rustic farce. It is a attest to mimes because it was a highly physical theater for utilizing mime

EARLY WESTERN FORM ELIZABETHAN
Most Elizabethan playwright used these mime section within or around the acts. This mimed relieved the strict form of classical tragedy. dum shows were also a part of civil entertainment.
Pantomime came to England from France as Italian mime scenes and from the Italian comedia dell arte.
The development of pantomime in England was quick. This made it to deviate and variant from the Italian and French form of mime, These pantomime were performed on Christmas time which developed the vocabulary of the word Christmas-panto. Most of the contributions of mime in England are John Weaver and John Rich, Joseph Grimald.
EARLY WESTERN FORM: FRANCE
The existence of mime in France was recorded in 1819 at the thearter of the funabules. In France pantomime and underwent certain changes. The contribution of Jean Haspard Debarau in the role priest whom he called Baptist.
MIME IN THE 20TH CENTURY
The emergence of the 20th century burst the creativity that turned into modern day mime. Mime was popular in music halls, circus and casino. in restaurant and hotels mime were used as a form of entertaining the customers while eating. Acrobats, dancers and musicians.
Most of the contribution of modern day mime are Rudulf Leban. Rudulf was a French teacher of mime and movement; he trained some great mime and dancers. Agna also helped in the development of modern mine. She had the first popular concert hall or mine.
All through history the French had contributed majorly to the development mime.
The likes of Etienne Decroux-who is teacher, Jean-Lowis Barraul who is a performer and Marcel Merceu , who is a performer and a teacher and finally Jasques Lecoq who is a teacher.
MIME AND SILENT FILMS
The invention of the video camera saw to the need that mime developed highly. During the early 20th century, when motion picture came, in France the early form of movies that were produced is the comics.
According to an article called "Silent Film." Published by Microsoft® Encarta® 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2008. Says “Silent Film, motion picture created before soundtrack technology became available in the late 1920s, or one created subsequently without dialogue. No silent movies had spoken dialogue, but some had musical accompaniment”. In these comic dramas, music were played on the background, while the words were purely mime. That is to say there were no spoken form. All the actions were just being mimed. These comics were highly developed in facial expression, and gesture.
At the early stage of silent films in France, the short movies were improvised, but later great mimes in France saw well to the development of mime, there were later written form of mime the likes of directors and actors like Cecil B. DeMille; Sergey Mikhaylovich Eisenstein; Abel Gance; and famous actors like Lon Chaney; Charlie Chaplin;

CONTEMPORARY MIME
In the second half of the 20th century, mime became more popular, and even more popular. The popularity of mime owes to civilization. At this point in America, mimes were no longer regarded as useless nonentities, that do not have any value in live. Everybody were regarded as having equal rights.
Mime are seen on the streets, in casinos, hotels, restaurants in the form of jugglers, musicians etc.
Despite the fact that mime saw its way on the street, (which had been its surviving ground) it was never over-ruled in the theatre. The present day theatre, calls for different kinds of production styles. It is then necessary to us mime in other to dramatize, so mime had even been more successful in the theatre, need most.
Most realistic and naturalistic plays calls for silent communication, (in case of dilemma) some call for an actor to improvise certain props while on stage.
HOW THEN IS MIME USEFUL TO THEATRE OR HOW IS MIME IMPORTANT TO THE ACTOR
All through this course, one may like to ask a question like “how then is mime useful to theatre or how is mime important to the actor” every footballer needs his foot to play, the doctor needs his stethoscope and other materials, so does an actor needs mime on stage.
This means that the importance of mime cannot be overruled, so it would be worthy to note the following importance of mime:-
1. EMPHASIS :- miming helps to lay emphasis on any dramatic work. Miming while acting helps emphasis on certain conditions on stage. Imagin how a production would look like without movement of the body, face or gesture. Equally so in every way does it apply to the Dramatic Art, which minus its acting, its gestures—in a word, its Pantomime—we have nothing but, to quote Hamlet, "Words, words, words."
2. Characterization:- miming also helps in differentiating between characters. It allows an actor to mimic and imitate a real, or larger than live character. For instance, a young man playing the role of an old man, had to mimic the posture, the swag, the voice and pitch of an old man. Even in the early Grecian theatre, were women are not allowed on stage, and men play the role of women, all they need do is to mimic women. All these shows how important mime is to theater.
3. Stylization:- miming helps to show the production style that is been used in the play. For a realistic play to be staged, the movement must be realistic.
4. MOOD:- miming determines the mood of a play. Through miming an actor is able to portray the whether a play is a comedy or tragedy. It is a common knowledge that comedies are always exaggerated, because the characters are being secured. In a comedy, a character can take an action that would have led to his death, but because of the security, he would only be made a laughing stock. Taking an example of OLA ROTIMI’S HOPE OF THE LIVING DEAD the characters are in a confusing and in a condition that their live is at stake, but if the play is to be produced, through miming the actions, on would know it’s a comedy.

MIME, HAS IT DONE ANYTHING TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEATRE
One would definitely want to ask the above question. The reason being that so far we have been able to know the importance of mime, but how would a footballers foot be so important to him if he had not contributed to his development, or how would a doctor, always carry his stethoscope about if it had not contributed to his development. Of course any \thing that is important to you would have contributed or will contribute to your development,
Then mime is not left out from theatre. It would be justifiable that say that mime had contributed to theatre in the following ways:-

During the Grecian era, Teleste, who is the first world recorded mime, had helped to elevate theatre from just an ordinary ritualistic chorus, to words and action

The addition of movement had also helped in the beautification theatrical activities.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, and the medieval era, mime was the only form of theatre that survived the harshness of time, despite persecution faced by its actors. The histrione and the scurrae had helped to preserve theatre through mime.
The Comedia dell arte was a pure improvisation, and so, movements and miming was necessary.
Dumb shows formed a new dimension in the development of theatrical activity during the 17th century England.
The emergence of film also boosted mime in theatre, in the sense that the early silent film makes use of miming without dialogue.
The likes of great men of high caliber on mime like Debaraue, Bierre who are great mime teachers not only developed mime in theatre but also established educational institution.
Democracy and freedom movement in America contributed to mime as a free will profession which saw its way on the street and in America.

CONCLUSION
1. So far we have been able to trace the origin of mime, from the early man, down to modern day mime, and Africa.
2. Also we have been able to know the relevance of mime to theatre.
3. We have also been able to know the meaning of mime.
4. AND finally we have also known how important mime is to theatre.

Reference
Abrams M.H. Geofrey(2005) a glossary of Literary terms 8th ed. Wordsworth
Annette B. Lust : Greek mimes to Marcel Marcauce; actors, Pierots and clowns; a chronicle of the many visages of mime {a published internet article} © 1996 – 2002
Anete B. Lust : Etiene Decrous and the French school of mime{the quarterly journal of speech, vol.vii, © October 1971 no 2 }
Anthony Cuddon John: (1998) a dictionary of literary terms
Barry Rolte: (2006) a concise history of mime (published internet article)
Broad bent (first published 1901) a history of pantomime (edited internet article)
Leabheart Thomas: an interview with Decroux. Internet mime journal Article; no.1 November 1974