Frenetic Theater is the kind of venue where you can see a play about a prostitute in Amsterdam or FrenetiCore’s multimedia productions ranging from film to dance and music.
On Dec. 2, the Frenetic Theater will host a mime workshop conducted by full-time mime, Daniel Cossette.
Cossette first fell in love with the art form of miming when he was 16 years old on a mission trip building homes and visiting orphanages in various nations.’
In different countries, language barriers can potentially infringe on understandable communication. Cossette’s youth group learned miming to overcome this barrier, since the art form allows communication that a cross-language dictionary cannot deliver in pressed time.
The experience of communicating with people without talking was monumental for Cossette. He knew miming was what he wanted to do.
However, the performance art of mime is endangered, with very few mimes working full-time.
The only full-time mime school in the country is a combination mime and bible school in Pasadena, Calif., once called Mimeistry International. It now has moved in a more theatrical direction with a company called Innovo Physical Theatre.
Cossette was properly trained at Mimeistry International, which involves a three-year program that teaches the art of silent communication and expressing the word of God through gospel.
Aside from religious teachings, mime artist Marcel Marceau brought miming instruction from France.
After finishing up at Mimeistry International, Cossette started his own organization intertwining miming and religion called Ambassador Ministries.
One of the most noteworthy endeavors that Ambassador Ministries has taken on is the Justice Project.
The project was a march on the Connecticut State Capitol where Cossette, in all white, mimed his way to the forefront in a silent protest against abortion.
A Christian native of Connecticut, Cossette was able to lead an undetermined amount of people where he held a toy baby and the slogan, ‘This is not justice, it’s murder.’
Considering much of Cossette’s current work is deeply rooted in Christian organizations, the question of theology and the art of miming for someone who does not know a lot about the art form seems obvious.
While Mimeistry International had a strong focus in theology, Christianity is not the major component of Cossette’s upcoming workshop.
‘Everything I do is because of who I am,’ Cossette said. ‘There’s a Christian method that I use, but that’s just that my belief affects my morals and how I behave and how I talk. Mime is an art form. I wouldn’t say I’ll be separating myself (from Christianity).’
‘Mime as a rule is a form of communication. I can teach the art form, but it’s up to the student to express whatever it is that they are trying to express.’
