Jeanine Thompson

Welcome

I am a multidisciplinary artist working in theatre, modern dance and mime. I bring the wealth and specificity of these disciplines together to create new work, interpret existing work, inform my performances and teach my students the individual and combined techniques of these art forms. I teach artists to work together collaboratively. I bring this array of knowledge and skill to my work with performers, animators, designers and technicians in the burgeoning fields of motion capture, virtual reality and mediated performance environments.

I am a storyteller. Whether it be through the abstractions of dance, the illusions of mime or the words of theatre, I use all that I know to express what I envision in my imagination. I constantly ask myself, my collaborators and my students to try to do something we can only imagine, something that we do not know yet how to do. That something will take us to new horizons.

My art has been influenced by working with Marcel Marceau (the French mime artist), Anne Bogart and The SITI Company (creators of new work), and my primary collaboration partner, John Giffin (choreographer and former Pina Bausch company member). Recently, I have been inspired by working with motion capture, animation and virtual reality. In this arena, my primary collaborator has been Vita Berezina-Blackburn (animation specialist at Ohio State University’s Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design).

While navigating this website, please note that it includes activities only from 2001 to date. Activities prior to 2001 will be added at a later date. When you select a category, you will find examples of my work that are singular in discipline, as well as work that incorporates multiple disciplines. These distinctions are in the descriptions of the work and the work is cross-listed in the correlating art form. For example, a work that is Theatre-Mime will be listed under both Theatre and Mime categories. A work that is predominantly theatre with a few mime elements will be listed only under the Theatre category (with mime noted in the description of the work). When I have done multiple professional activities for a production, such as director and choreographer, I have listed the production under the categories of both Director and Choreographer.

Theatre

At the core of my heart, I am a storyteller -- telling stories old and new. I craft words, characters and situations to tell a story poetically, comically or dramatically.

Dance

Dance is crafting expression with the whole body moving through space and time. Dance has been at the forefront of all that I do as an artist and as a teacher.

Mime

Mime is the haiku of physical expression. The mime artist cuts away at an idea, like a poet, to reveal the exquisite essence of that idea. Mime makes the invisible visible and tells a story that is universally understood by the heart and mind.