Best Solo Show

Forget the stereotypical annoying mime: the guy trapped in a box, the guy climbing the ladder, the guy you want to strangle. Wamer is part many things--part dancer, part actor, part comedian--but he's never anything less than fully mesmerizing. With his new troupe, he has been changing the conversation about dance in Tucson. His innovative version of mime--call it body theater--slows down the rapid sashays and turns of dance, converting them into slow, silent gestures that speak volumes. His solo show last January, at ZUZI's Little Theater in the Historic YWCA, had him darting in and out of his own films, deploying colored batons to surprisingly comic effect and conjuring up the night terrors of a small child. In his warm enactment of all things human, he calls to mind the mute eloquence of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp.