Don't worry if you're not a mime and feel free to continue reading as I will spill some tea and share some secrets you might then see on stage when watching a mime piece.
But I'd like this to be more of a help on the journey to become a better mime for all of the mimes out there trying their best. I've learned some of it in the beginning but some also at the University. So fasten your seatbelts and prepare for a bumpy ride of acknowledging your mistakes.
1. Overcomplicated ideas
This is a very common mistake that every person makes when learning and mostly creating a mime piece. The more of an overthinker you are, the more this will or probably already did happen to you.
Pantomime has its boundaries with the main one being the lack of words. But this doesn't mean what you think it means. It actually means that we are bound by not only our own imagination but mainly by the imagination of our audience. And this is why we need to simplify our plot, our imaginary objects and our emotions too. Because we need everyone to be able to follow at all times easily and not stop to think what we just did there because they lose the thread and we lose a part of the audience.
This is very important as it influences the audience greatly. It is the number one reason why pantomime has such a small audience in my opinion and that is why I put it in the first place in this mimeblog.
It affects all the mimes because there needs to be only one mime (and there are plenty) that makes this mistake and the whole audience that couldn't follow the mime through his performance is demotivated and thinks that pantomime is too complicated for them to understand and will probably not going to see another mime ever again.
And I do believe that mime pieces can also be abstract and hard to fathom but they should always make sense and have a clear message, point or a feeling people can follow, understand and ideally take as their own.
2. Moving too much
This is very similar to the first one but concerning your body. You can think of it in a same way as actors and words. Actors or people in general will be hard to understand if they talk too much and never pause. And the same goes with mimes and movement. Yes, it is our main tool as words are the tool of an actor. But we need to be very mindful of using the tool.
So if we move too much and don't pause our movement, its meaning becomes unintelligible as if you would speak without dividing the words. A mime needs to articulate but with his body, be clear and don't haste so his audience has time to compute everything, which brings me to another point.
3. Performing too fast
Another common mistake mostly happening to the beginners and mimes not used to stage and audience in general. But it can easily happen even to the most experienced mime on a bad day.
This is a very bad mistake because if you start performing too fast all of the above starts to happen, you are unintelligible and move too much. The culprit here is stress and the feeling that the audience doesn't get it, which your brain translates into the notion that they plain don't like you and want you to be done as fast as possible. But that is mostly wrong.
The one speck of truth there is that the audience doesn't get it whatever the reason may be. But instead of speeding up to get away you should do the opposite and slow down to give the audience the chance to get it because even if it's over complicated or you move too much, if you slow down, you give them a better chance of catching up with you and enjoying your etude.
4. Exaggerating and making faces
Pantomime is know to be an expressive art form mostly thanks to the biggest actors using mime as a tool in their acting and comedy, to name a few you might already have the names in your head, Jim Carrey, Rowan Atkinson. Both great actors and mimes.
But you don't have to do it in order for it to be mime. It is only one subgenre of mime and not the whole of it. It needs to serve a purpose for it to be justified the same as in acting because mime is acting without talking.
So chill, relax your face and let the emotions that you embody and perform move your face muscles and if it ends up as a grimace, I can stand behind it as it is true and coming from the inside and not from the outside.
5. Being a slave of the technique
This one I learned in my studies as I had plenty of classmates without so much experience and learning the mime techniques at a fast pace and intensity in classes at the University. But no matter where, if you only learn the technique, the magic tricks of mime art and skip the acting, it is as hollow as any other technique, be it dance or circus, speach.
The core of pantomime is the filling, not the crust. So yes, it is important or if not important it looks better and gives you more tools if you learn some mime technique but try to stay true to the story you create, to the emotions. The technique should be your tool and not your overlord. You use the technique to show the story and not use the story to show off your technique.
BONUS: 6. Happy feet
I will end with a rather trivial mistake but it makes quite a difference when you manage to remove it. You probably know the term or the movie and even if not your logic tells you. It's making too many unnecessary steps or just making steps on the spot even though you don't need to.
This one comes again down to self confidence overall and when performing mime. You are basically so nervous that your body just moves in a nervous way instead of once again doing the opposite. Because the cure is to be mindful about your steps
I hope you will now stop making and start seeing all the mistakes and enjoy mime.
If you have more questions don't hesitate to drop by my website www.contemporarymime.com or contact me @contemporarymime on any social media and ask me more or get an online class of mime with a glass of wine.