Étienne Decroux
| Étienne Decroux | |
|---|---|
| Born |
19 July 1898 Paris, France |
| Died | 12 March 1991 (aged 92) Boulogne-Billancourt, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1932–1968 |
Étienne Decroux (19 July 1898 in Paris, France – 12 March 1991 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France) was a French actor who studied at Jacques Copeau's Ecole du Vieux-Colombier, where he saw the beginnings of what was to become his life's obsession–corporeal mime. During his long career as a film and theatre actor, he created many pieces, using the human body as the primary means of expression.
Enrolled at the Vieux-Colombier in 1923, as a student of Charles Dullin, Decroux began to envision a newly defined vision of mime, and later developed an original, personal style of movement. His early "statuary mime" recalls Rodin's sculptures. Later, more plastic forms were called "mime corporeal" or corporeal mime. An intellectual and theoretician, his body training was based in part on what modern dancers call "isolations", in which body sections move in prescribed sequence, and, in part, on the physics of compensation required to keep the body in balance when the center of gravity is shifted.
He wanted to enlist other students into a mime company, but the acting students were not very interested. When the Vieux Colombier closed in 1924, Decroux taught at the acting school of Charles Dullin, the Atellier. Jean-Louis Barrault also came to the school, and the two worked closely for two years, producing corporeal mime pieces individually and together.
Arriving in New York in or around 1957, M. Decroux held morning and evening classes at a studio on 8th Avenue and 55th Street. Students came and went, but eventually were required to commit to a full-time regime when rehearsing for performance as The Mime Theatre of Etienne Decroux. Pieces presented at The Cricket Theatre in the Village included "The Factory," "The Trees," "All The City Works,"and "Evil Spirit." Students at the time included Sterling Jenson, Sunya Svenson, Marjorie Walker (née Oplatka) and Jewel Walker, who continued to teach the classes in New York for a time after Decroux returned to Paris.
Returning from the United States to Paris in 1962, he opened his school in Boulogne-Billancourt where he taught almost until his death. Many hundreds of students passed though his school, and a new generation of mimes continue his research.
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