History & Purpose - Real Love Rocks

About Us
(for an overview of our activities)
In 2008 in Izmir, Turkey, (İzmir, Türkiye), our family started the "Heartbeat Mime Troupe". The main theme of our work is real love. A few months later we started holding "Love Talks", informal discussion groups on topics relating to real love. In 2009 we began giving out hand painted "Love Rocks." We have had volunteers who received training and worked with us from Turkey, Romania, India, Mexico, Honduras, S. Korea & the US. The purpose of our work is to increase real love (both horizontally and vertically, between people and towards God). In August 2009, after 21 years of marriage, through the love and mentoring of an older couple, we had a wonderful breakthrough. We have learned better how to forgive, how to understand each other's needs and how to love each other in a way that leaves us feeling less alone. In 2009 and 2010 we continued this work in the San Francisco Bay Area, in San Leandro, near Oakland, California.
And in June 2011 we moved back to Istanbul, Turkey (Türkiye). After getting more training, we have begun co-leading workshops about real love in marriage in Istanbul and are seeking to encourage, mentor and train others to mentor couples who are seeking more closeness and real love in their marriages. D&A (Dennis & Alexandra McGee & kids)

How did we start? In 2006 my mother was out jogging near her home and was hit and killed by an absent minded driver. The shock of her sudden death gave me cause to reflect on my own life and relationships. I realized how little real love I had in my relationships. Though I had been thinking about love since my childhood, and had received a new life and love from God as a teenager, in 2006, from the ashes of my mother's death, I began to learn in a fresh way how to love God and people in truth. My wife, Alexandra, and our children, have worked together to pursue love and to share this love with others through the Heartbeat Mime Troupe , "Love Rocks", "Love Talks" and the "Love Survey" which we are conducting as part of our research for a book about real love.
Why Pantomime? Love must be shared. (Ideas Behind Our Pantomime troupe)
(An early idea for our logo)	Our pursuit of love resulted in an overwhelming desire to communicate the truths of love to those around us. Everyone knows at a deep level that love is important. Love is perhaps the most universal theme of all art, music, literature, movies and communication. The problem is not a failure to understand the importance of love in our heads. The problem is in our hearts. First, we fail to understand the real nature of love. And then, even as we begin to understand the nature of love, we still fail to live in light of what we know.
	We began searching for universal vehicles to stir up a desire for love in cold hearts. Pantomime seemed to us an ideal medium to express love's eternal truths. According to research done by Albert Mehrabian, only 7% of interpersonal communication is though the words we use. Some 55% is body language and %38 is tone. Messages expressed through "body language" can be even more influential than our words. The most famous pantomime artist in world, Marcel Marceau, described pantomime as "the language of the heart" because through this art the performer speaks from his/her heart directly into the heart of the viewer. Turkish pantomime artist Mehmet Fıstık put it this way after some 35 years of performing: "Pantomime stimulates the creative development of both the performer and the viewer, because the only instrument of communication used is the movement of the body." The viewer supplies the details from her/his own storehouse of experiences. Pantomime allows for direct communication of emotion. Pantomime is a gentle art form. It imposes on no one. Yet it breaks down language and cultural barriers and overcomes generational gaps. Just as everyone laughs and cries in the same language, pantomime is a universal language of emotion. Our troupe also learns how to work together with others in love as they practice and perform.