Mimes preach gospel without saying a word

The group’s style was
popular in black churches
in the late 1980s.

COLUMBUS (AP) — The white-painted faces of the children and teenagers are solemn: gloved hands folded in prayer, eyes cast downward.

As the music begins, their eyes widen, and they take on peaceful and pleased expressions. They start slowly, one or two mimes acting out the lyrics of a lead vocalist singing the first verse.

Two girls have a silent conversation, pointing and smiling at each other.

Sometimes you have to encourage yourself.

As the recorded gospel chorus swells, so does the movement of the Christian mimes. Fists pumping, heads nodding and arms stretched toward the heavens, the silent performers act out the lyrics.

It’s (both fingers point downward) not (cross wrists) ohhhhh-ver (push an invisible object over, twice).

In His Image Mime Ministry, young mimes from Triedstone Missionary Baptist Church on the Near East Side, performs at church services, community festivals and the Ohio State Fair.

The troupe is among several central Ohio mime ministries. Like church dancers and dramatists, Christian mimes silently act out songs, Scripture or sermons to give churchgoers another way to experience God’s word. Christian mimes believe the spirit fills them and moves them and, in turn, they touch the hearts of the audience.

“A lot of times people get touched, and they might cry or shout,” said Donnice Crockett, 16, a mime at Second Baptist Church, also on the Near East Side. “I like the way God uses me as his little vessel.”

The emotional reaction makes sense to Todd Farley, founding director of Mimeistry International, a Pasadena, Calif.-based group that promotes the development of artistic ministries around the world.

“We’ve become a visual society and a visual people,” said Farley, a Christian mime since age 13. He studied with legendary mime Marcel Marceau in Paris.

“I think the human heart longs for physical expression, and mime gives that expression,” he said.

The style practiced by In His Image — acting out gospel music with silent movement — became popular in black churches in the late 1980s, Farley said. Mimes act out various vocal parts, with all the performers moving at once to represent the chorus.

The mimes bounce along to up-tempo music, and bend or lift their arms for a particularly strenuous note. When a soloist is moving, the others stand still with bowed heads and closed eyes.

Other churches have long used mime to illustrate sermons, with a performer or two acting out the pastor’s message, Farley said.

Today, mime ministries are so widespread that Farley boasts that he has worked with every Christian denomination. Miming also is used by Christian street performers to evangelize to passers-by, and by pastors looking to add to their preaching, he said.

Pastor Harold Hudson of Calvary Tremont Missionary Baptist Church on the Near East Side said his youthful mimes engage young people in a way he sometimes can’t.

“They may not relate to the preaching, and they might not relate to the choir that’s singing, but they sure do like to see their peers,” he said.

Not only does mime praise God, but it also comes from him, said Del-Jean Suber, 19, who choreographs for In His Image on breaks from Ohio University.

She doesn’t really choose the movements, she said. “I don’t make them up,” she said. “God gives them to me.”

And the mimes silently pass on the message.