jeu de gestes, for mime quartet, includes one score.
This quartet for dancers or mimes is a miniature exercise in visual counterpoint, cast loosely in the format of a Baroque suite. Prior to rehearsals a short, recognizable action drawn from daily life and involving broad gestures but no traveling is selected. The group then develops a uniform rendition of this action. When mastered, the action is segmented into three subgestures, yielding five stopping points: beginning, end, and two intermediate points. This basic visual raw material is used in five short dance-like pieces of contrasting character that mix the segmented action at various speeds and blend them in continually shifting combinations. Although jeu de gestes is performed in silence, a visual tempo in each of the five dances is established by means of a short, repeating visual riff that's assigned to one of the performers. The remaining three players take their cues from this riff, creating a visual effect not unlike a musical ground bass. jeu de gestes was commissioned by The United Mime Workers of Urbana, Illinois in 1975 and premiered by them in 1976.
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