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‘To be silly is quite an art’: the weekend I became a mime artist
Our writer, Kate Wyver, joins the popular mime workshop given by Nola Rae.
Early on in mime class, I hit a ‘brick wall’. It’s about two metres high and the width of my
outstretched arms, but you can still see my shiny, red-faced embarrassment through it. ‘First,
pretend you hate the wall,’ internationally renowned mime artist, Nola Rae prompts, as we 5
scratch and hit at the air, ‘and now you love the wall.’ We stroke the imaginary bricks lovingly
and I wonder if I’m secretly being filmed. I wave my arms awkwardly in a caress, wondering how
much shame I’m willing to wade through. ‘It is the most beautiful wall you have never seen.’
Rae is a co-founder of London International Mime Festival. Originally a dancer, she trained with
the great mime artist Marcel Marceau in Paris. I’ve joined the 70-year-old Australian performer’s 10
coveted two-day workshop at the festival to attempt to learn her art. ‘A mime artist,’ Rae
explains, ‘is an illusionist. We grab things out of the air. We make our audience see what isn’t
there.’ Over the weekend, she teaches us the skills of rhythm, movement and articulation. We
become monsters, spiders, misers and flies. We bob and crouch and hop as she relays to us
snippets of the history of mime through Marceau and a popular form of theatre called commedia 15
dell’arte.
There are 24 of us on the course, which is booked up a year in advance. The group includes a
clown, a comedy double-act and drama-school students. They all carry themselves with such
confidence. Their exaggerated movements seem to flow effortlessly through their joints and
fingertips, while I’m trapped inside my head panicking about how awkward I feel. ‘Don’t worry 20
about feeling stupid or making mistakes,’ Rae advises. ‘That’s how you learn.’ And yet, the
worry lingers.
For comfort, I cling to the few others who have little experience in performing on stage. There’s
a young woman who has never acted but wanted to give mime a go, and a retired office worker
who has been going to the mime festival for years and thought it would be fun. Then I’m paired 25
up with 10-year-old Eva. An all-round fan of stories (her cat is named Crookshanks after the one
in the Harry Potter books), Eva didn’t realise the class would be full of adults when she signed
up but doesn’t seem the slightest bit intimidated.
A brilliant performer with a particular eye for timing, Eva takes the biggest risks and builds the
wildest inventions, encouraging the rest of us to be ever more playful with our actions. We’re 30
partnered up for an exercise where we have to mirror each other while crossing the room to
meet in the middle as if greeting a long lost friend, only to meet, realise it’s the wrong person,
and waddle away. When it’s our turn, Eva happily leads with no holding back. We fling our arms
and legs around and jump like deer; at this point, she makes me laugh so hard I have to catch
my breath before I can copy her, rasping like a wildcat and wobbling like jelly. When we cross in 35
the centre she makes me walk like a crab across the whole length of the space back to the
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starting line. I can’t stop grinning. Finally, rid of my stifling embarrassment, I start to get to grips
with the task. Look through the bright eyes of an eager, intelligent child, and mime is all about
play.
Mime doesn’t have to mean a showy individual in a black-and-white stripy top with a whitened, 40
sorrowful face, stuck in an imaginary box (though I can now very effectively push away a heavy
invisible box, should the need arise). Instead, mime makes us focus on the little things: eye
contact, touch, individual movements. While it can come across as a highly pretentious art form
– particularly, Rae says, ‘if you take yourself too seriously’ – mime celebrates the skill of
playfulness. ‘To be silly is quite an art,’ she adds. To mime is to play a game and stick to the 45
imaginary, wondrously childish rules as well as you can. It is someone falling over for comic
effect for the pleasure of making others laugh. It is the skill of telling a good story, eyes wide
open and lips sealed.
Mime, I have learned, is the art of paying close attention to the minor details. At least, that’s
what I think it’s all about, sweaty and aching as I leap over a brick wall, pick up a heavy 50
suitcase, slip on a puddle of water and wallop into a tree on my way out.
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Section A: Reading
Spend 35 minutes on this section.
Read the text, a newspaper article describing the writer’s experience of taking part in a mime
workshop, in the insert, and answer Questions 1–8.
1 Look at the first paragraph (lines 3–8).
(a) Why is the phrase brick wall in inverted commas ( ‘ ’ )?
[1]
(b) What other meaning does ‘hit a brick wall’ have in this paragraph?
[1]
(c) Which adjective does the writer use to describe her embarrassment?
[1]
2 Look at the second and third paragraphs (lines 9–22).
(a) Rae’s former career helped her to become a successful mime artist.
Explain why and give one quotation from the text to support your explanation.
Explanation:
Quotation:
[2]
(b) The mime classes are popular.
Explain how we know this.
Give a quotation from the text to support your explanation.
Explanation:
Quotation:
[2]
(c) Give two phrases which emphasise the strong emotion the writer feels.
•
[2]
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3 Look at the fourth paragraph (lines 23–28).
How does the reader know that Eva is a confident child?
[1]
4 Look at the fifth paragraph (lines 29–39).
(a) Which word in the text could be replaced with the word ‘actor’?
[1]
(b) Give a word or phrase in the text which means ‘without restraint’.
[1]
(c) The writer uses similes in the text to describe action and movement.
What else does the writer describe using a simile?
[1]
5 Look at the sixth paragraph (lines 40–48). Give three words from the paragraph that the writer
uses to connect contrasting ideas.
•
[3]
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6 Look at the fourth, fifth and sixth paragraphs (lines 23–48).
The list below gives the different types of punctuation the writer uses to present extra information
in the text.
Draw a line to match each punctuation with its function.
Puntuation presenting Function
extra information
colon ( : ) joining one sentence to another when the
information is closely related
brackets ( ( ) ) emphasises or highlights the information
dashes ( – ) showing the reader it is information / direct
speech given by someone and repeated
word for word
semi-colon ( ; ) reader knows that a list of items will follow
quotation marks / the information is purely
inverted commas ( ‘ ’ ) incidental/unimportant
[4]
7 Look at the seventh paragraph (lines 49–51).
Tick () one box to complete this sentence.
In the final sentence the writer …
has an accident as she leaves.
has difficulty finding the exit.
is about to go on a holiday.
is practising what she has learnt.
[1]
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8 Look at the third, fourth, fifth and sixth paragraphs (lines 17–48).
The structure of the text reflects the writer’s feelings at different stages during the workshop.
Complete the flow chart by choosing a word from the box which describes the writer’s feelings in
each paragraph.
There are two extra words in the box you do not need to use.
rejection reassurance acceptance release dread defeat
Third paragraph feeling:
Fourth paragraph feeling:
Fifth paragraph feeling:
Sixth paragraph feeling:
[4]
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