Building Your Business with Sara Troy and her guest Dr Christiaan Willems, on air from December 12th
I have been a coach and consultant in the corporate sector for more than 20 years, specialising in non-verbal and on-camera communication. But my professional background (after leaving Consulting Engineering behind) spans some 40 years in the performing arts, music, and television. For 25 of those years I was a professional Mime artist, creating, performing, and touring solo mime shows.
One of these solo shows, titled Son of Romeo – a mime version of Romeo & Juliet created in the style of a Bugs Bunny cartoon in which I played all the parts (with no words), including: Romeo; Juliet; a cast of thousands; and one small dog – I eventually adapted for television.
This was partly in response to my Mime teacher’s suggestion that “…you can’t do Mime on television – it doesn’t work – the silence…”, and partly because of my training and experience in television (including working for the BBC in the UK), which revealed a way of not only making it work and achieving it, but by utilising the visual language and technical capabilities of television – in this case the fairly early days of Blue Screen technology – creating the ‘cartoon’ aspects which had been hugely influential in the creation of the original stage show.
Both the visual and movement styles drew heavily from a diverse and divergent range of sources, not only the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner cartoons, but also: the Sistine Chapel; Errol Flynn’s swashbuckling Robin Hood movie; nonsensical comedy; and of course Shakespeare – with the ‘live’ human performer both playing and interacting with multiple characters on screen, against painted cartoon backgrounds. So, both the mime skills and the television knowledge and technology were adapted to support and enhance each other in a rather unique combination.
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Fast forward a decade or so to 2000 and I began adapting those same Mime skills to the non-verbal aspects of professional communication – for television presenters, tertiary academics, and corporate professionals. Because Mime, at its most fundamental, consists of the analysis, manipulation and stylization of body-language. And with body language representing more than 55% of human communication, there was, for me at least, an inescapable logic in applying those mime skills and techniques to professional communication (this has been borne out over the past 20 years as I have coached literally hundreds of professional and academic clients).
Fast forward another decade or so and I am formalising that notion (as well as others involving music) through my doctoral research and thesis. And it is in that research context that an apparently entirely unrelated story emerged by serendipitous chance, which, if written as a film script no-one would believe. Yet it is absolutely true. And the role of Serendipity – in both that story and in my research – is what binds these two remarkable stories together.
The deliciously pretentious title of the Doctoral thesis is: Music, Mime & Metamorphosis – which simultaneously says everything and says nothing. Yet it describes, was a catalyist for, and holds depths of meaning, experience, and stories that would never have been revealed without a chance comment by someone in 1979 in London who casually suggested, “you should try Mime Chris. You’ve got the body for it”.
So what’s Mime got to do with it? Just about everything…
Dr. Christiaan (Chris) Willems is a professional communication consultant and coach who enjoys an extensive and uniquely diverse career across: creative industries; music; award-winning international television; corporate communication, and tertiary education.
Informed by this diverse professional experience, and formalised by doctoral research, Dr Chris has specialised in non-verbal and on-camera communication for more than 20 years – applying his trademarked concept of: The Stylised Version of You® to the professional presenting context.
Dr Chris’s unique coaching approach utilises his specialist expertise and experience in stage and screen performance – in particular 25 years as a professional Mime artist – to help professional communicators become Comfortable, Confident, Credible presenters, both live and on-camera.
I have a free Report/Booklet titled: ‘Going Digital’ – What you need to know before you set Foot – or Face – in front of a Video Camera!’
drchris@artsmediaconsultants.com
linkedin.com/in/drchristiaanwillems
facebook.com/Christiaan Willems
Vimeo: a selection of ‘One Minute Micro Masterclasses’:
https://vimeo.com/ (Aesthetics)
https://vimeo.com/(Factors to Consider)
https://vimeo.com/ (Cutaways)
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