Dresden: The 41st Festival Showcases the Full Art of Pantomime

We need to talk. About the mimes who don’t speak but still have a lot to say. You can see them again right now at the Theaterhaus Rudi. The “only festival of its kind in Germany,” as Michael Meinel of the festival organizer Pantomimenstudio Dresden put it in his opening remarks, kicked off with a gala and will present five different performances through Sunday evening. As is tradition, the gala offered a preview of what’s to come, but also showcased the talents of the Pantomimenstudio’s artists and the results of a pre-festival workshop. A colorful mix featuring scenes that make you think and moments that bring hearty laughter.

“The Table Is Set” was the theme of the opening performance, featuring artists from the Mimenstudio training group under the direction of mime artist Tim Schreiber. Insights into the restaurant industry with many archetypal images—from the cook slicing leeks at lightning speed to the beaming host (who, fortunately, no longer exists in such a subservient form, but clichés persist and are still well understood). At the end of the performance, the team presented the number 41 on a silver tray—as a symbol of the festival’s 41st edition.

It’s all set: the 41st Pantomime Festival (Photo: Ulrich van Stipriaan)

They say that pantomime is understood by everyone because it’s wordless. That sounds good, but of course in real life it’s not nearly as easy as it sounds. After all, mimes also have a more or less fixed repertoire of facial expressions and gestures to convey certain things. So “learning vocabulary without speaking” was the unofficial motto of the workshop with Denise Namura and Michael Bugdahn from the Paris-based Compagnie À Fleur de Peau. How convenient that Bugdahn was born in Germany—that way, he could not only demonstrate the results of “Beyond Words” to the workshop team but also explain them. So what does that look like when washing your hands, or how do you express concepts like creativity, peace, hope, humility, or silence? Are the dynamics and qualities of the movements always unambiguous? For mimes, yes—the rest of us definitely have to learn them when it comes to gestures that aren’t obvious.

Even more imagination is required when individual words become sentences and sentences become stories. You might lose your train of thought along the way, but you can always recapture it—if only because the movements are so captivating. Music also plays a significant role in dance and theater for most mimes—but even silent films were never entirely silent. This was particularly beautiful to witness at the DÍRTZ Theatre. Jolanda Löllmann and Charlie Denat explore the boundaries of contemporary dance and puppetry. What movements! And what a moving story.