Mimes convey great expression

Mime is an old form of performance in which the mime artist does not speak or make any sounds. Their performance instead focus’s on the artists movement and facial expressions to convey what is going on in the piece. Mimes have been used like this for hundreds of years and indeed in silent films mimes were key to the storyline. Stars such as Harold Lloyd and Buster Keyton were famed for their mimes in their films. And probably the greatest silent film mime artist of all time is Charlie Chaplin who began his career in the theatre but was soon noticed by film executives and catapulted to stardom all because of his excellent mimes.

Mimes are used to great effect in films as an accomplished mime artist can convey every emotion and all without uttering a single word. You can be transfixed and understand exactly what is going on in a silent film thanks to the skills of the mime artist. Mimes are not just about using the face as a tool to convey emotion. However, the whole body must be used to create the best effect. A mime artist will study how a person behaves in certain situations and attempt to recreate these subtle yet important movements and expressions in order to really get the audience understand how they are feeling.

Mime is not only serious it can also be used very successfully in comedy routines. Clowns and other such acts use mimes to create an air of comedy about their performances and slap stick is a well used method of mime. Slap stick is a type of physical humour that is often over the top and quite chaotic to the audience. However all slap stick routines are timed down to the last second in order to have the audience laughing and cheering.

Mimes are not just used in films, theatres and clowning acts they are also used in dancing and games. For example the moonwalk which was made popular by Michael Jackson is based on mime as the person moonwalking appears to be ‘walking’ forwards but going backwards. This is another mime act that takes time to perfect but looks visually stunning for the audience. Mimes are also used in charades when teams or individuals take it in turns to act out the title of a film, book or song for the other players to guess. The winner is the person who is able to mime out their title the best for everyone to correctly guess it.

Mimes are a fascinating form of entertainment and are used as much now as they ever were. Anyone can attempt a mime act as the only equipment you need is your own body! Children particularly like to attempt mimes as they have a good imagination and find miming a fun game as they pretend to be a certain animal or be in a certain mood. Mimes are fun and can be enjoyed by anyone regardless of language as the only language used in mime is that of the imagination.

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