With his body as his only instrument, Marcel Marceau (1923-2007) brought the art of mime to stages around the world, imposing a universal language. He who knew how to "make visible the invisible” gave life to characters who, without saying a word, express life as it is, with its struggles, its hopes, its dreams.
Marcel Mangel, his real name, was born in Strasbourg on March 22, 1923. At the start of the World War II, his family Chaplin, his hero, to perfection. In 1942, he joined the Resistance, taking the Polish Jewish origin must leave hastily Strasbourg for Périgueux. Marcel is 16 years old and already he imitates pseudonym of "Marceau" which he will keep all his life. In hiding, he brought many children to Switzerland, saving them from deportation.
The human condition, made up of laughter and tears, will be the breeding ground for his art. On March 22, 1947, Marcel Marceau created the silent character of Bip at the Théâtre de Poche. The costume of this alter ego, hero of modern times, with a face painted in white, in light trousers and a camisole with big buttons closed on a sailor top, and in the famous top hat on which a red flower quivers, will make him the one of the most famous Frenchmen abroad.
That he chases invisible butterflies, that he climbs imaginary stairs, that he walks against the wind, inspiring the famous "moonwalk" of Michael Jackson, the mime Marceau, by turns lyrical, poetic, sometimes serious or funny , fills the empty space with allegorical or everyday stories with his gestures and looks as his only weapon. In 1978, he created the International School of Mimodrama, where he transmitted to his students the demanding conventions of mime such as the sense of ellipse, the interplay between space, time and movement.
Marcel Marceau crossed the 20th century as a virtuoso of “silent comedy”. A huge artist, he reinvented pantomime to raise it to the rank of classical art.
