Silent Expressions

“Mime can be an efficient medium for teaching children various aspects of individuality. It is an art beyond words”,says Madhusudan,who was here in the city to perform at the Balgandharv Rangmandir,recently. He adds,”I never knew anything about mime or any other art form expressed with body movements even after becoming a professional mime actor.”

Madhusudhan,who hails from the historic city of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh,developed an interest in this much-neglected art form since a young age. He picked up the elements from friends and Sri Nagabhushan of the same city,who practiced mime as his hobby and made pioneering contribution to this art from.

Madhusudhan,later on learnt the finer nuances of the art form,from his teacher Niranjan Goswami. “I also used videocassettes of mime by the famous American luminary Tony Martino. My main inspiration was the Indian Mime Theatre of Kolkata,where incidentally,I had undergone training in miming as the only candidate from Andhra Pradesh,” he says,adding,“I am happy that I got this chance to learn the art from him. The period of hardship that I went through has taught me a lot.”

He has also created many new variances of the art forms to encourage the originality of performance. “To popularise mime,we also started organising mime events across Assam and also other parts of the country,” he says. Infact it even led him to start his own mime academy in Hyderabad,”With around 100 students in the academy,youngsters are pretty much interested in taking it up seriously as a profession,” says the actor about his art form.