'To be silly is quite an art': the weekend I became a mime

The first rule of mime club? You do not talk. Well, not when you’re hard at work. Our writer takes lessons from Marcel Marceau’s former student, Nola Rae

Early on in mime school, I hit a brick wall. It’s about 6ft high and the width of my outstretched arms, but you can still see my shiny, plum-faced embarrassment through it. “First you hate the wall,” internationally renowned mime artist Nola Rae prompts, as we scratch and smack at the stale air, “and now you love the wall.” We drool and shimmy against the imaginary bricks and I wonder if I’m secretly being filmed for a prank show. 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 Marcel Marceau in Paris. I’ve joined the 70-year-old Australian performer’s coveted two-day workshop at the festival to attempt to learn her art.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3aWoofs