The Chameleons have taught thousands of children from California to China, from Long Island to Liverpool!

With a little time and a measure of direction, children are able to create their own Story Mime Theatre performances for their parents and the public.

Workshops       45-min / 1 hour

1-6 Sessions        All ages / grades

The Chameleons greatly expand on what is covered in the workshops’ single classes to create an actual “conservatory” experience of the art form. Developing fundamental skills of mime and pantomime, the students will learn techniques from the highly disciplined American Mime Theatre School, as well as physical comedy, narrated Mime, and movement with vocal effects. Finally, the students work toward a thrilling culmination program for parents, other students, and teachers. The culmination is a combination of material developed by The Chameleons in collaboration with students, at times using content from grade level curriculum. Narration Mime is one of the theatre styles that can be used as a way to connect words with movement, truly bringing curriculum to life. The Chameleons’ residencies employ a highly effective method of kinesthetic learning, and they give the students the rare opportunity of preparing an exciting, creatively stimulating performance. Most importantly, the students engage in this process as a true ensemble, where each student has a “voice”.

Students performing “Trees”,

a mythical piece about the power of nature

Students preparing to do “The Stealth Walk”

The Chameleons provide workshops that teach students to use their bodies to express their imagination and to depict imagery, character, emotion and story. Taught by either Berger or Diskin, students develop skills in handling invisible objects (pantomime) to create a sense of “place” and “detail”, characterization, creative movement to interpret vocabulary words, and engage in the art of silent story telling. The students love the challenge of performing in total silence resulting in an increased ability to focus and concentrate. Teachers especially love using the “stealth walk” as a concentration tool all year long.

Berger & Diskin present a highly entertaining and educational Mime Theatre workshop to teachers of all grade levels. Educators will readily acquire simple mimetic skills and methods for imparting this amazing art of the imagination to their students. This class will cover the depiction of imagery in space (Pantomime), kinesthetic movement exercises as a way to interpret vocabulary words, and short plays (Scenes) with easy staging techniques that can be applied to any type of student presentation. Teachers can readily incorporate some of the techniques to connect to curriculum.

The Chameleons also feature a special PD on teaching children “Peter & The Wolf” with mime, music and the classic Peter and the Wolf narration recorded in both English and Spanish.

Young student performing a practice scene in Sharon Diskin's Mime workshop.

Photos by Kasia Kozinski

Keith Berger’s Physical Theatre Workshop, is open to: Actors, Dancers, Directors, College Students and all movement - based performers.  The range of student’s level of experience is professional performers to college level students. This class is designed to greatly enhance and transform the performer’s quality of movement and physical presence on stage. Students will learn to create a powerful feeling of real empathy and belief through their movement, characters, and interaction. Students will also create their own original movement based performance material.

Workshops and Residencies

Residencies        45-min / 1 hour

7-15 Sessions        All ages / grades

Sample clip of “Peter & The Wolf” Professional development with Sharon Diskin and Beth Sussman.