Magic & Mime at Prerana: Part II

During our four delightful days at Prerana, Chris taught the girls the fundamentals of mime, hat tricks and balloon magic. Mime is a wonderful art to learn along with magic; mime helps a person to feel at home in their body and to be more present and attentive as a performer. Chris is an enthusiastic and engaging teacher and the girls felt immediately comfortable and at ease with him. They quickly took to the mime and learned a lot of the fundamentals while having serious fun. The mime was particularly important for two of the girls, who learned very quickly and during free time kept doing hat tricks and mime moves.

On the third day of our time at Prerana, we had an opportunity to do a show down the street at a temple that had an afternoon program for about one hundred children. We had a meeting to plan the show and the girls decided to do the whole performance by themselves. During the meeting, an MC was chosen and they all chose a trick that they felt comfortable performing, even though some of them had only been studying magic for two days. The two girls who were so enthusiastic and natural with the mime, did not feel they were ready to perform a magic trick in public. Chris had an idea to create a mime routine with them. As Tom rehearsed with the larger group, Chris went off with the other two and they developed an amazingly funny “Floating Suitcase” routine.

The show was a wonderful experience for everyone, the older girls having an opportunity to polish their routines, and the new magicians having to face their fears of performing for the first time. A highlight of the show was the “Floating Suitcase” routine. The two young mimes were clearly pleased and proud as the room filled with squeals of laughter and delight in response to their amusing antics. Chris and Tom were also very proud of these wonderful young women performing with such poise and presence, amazing and amusing their audience. Seeing our Prerana magicians so clearly confident in front of such a large audience, we knew the mission of Magicians Without Borders was being fulfilled.