MIME FESTIVAL –Part 1
“Collectif Petit Travers”
“Family Floez”


I felt the London International Mime Festival as a celebration. Large queues out of the theatres, and difficulty to find available tickets for the performances. I was lucky I attended four of the events that took place in this festival. Le Petit Travers, Family Floez, Faulty Optic and Sharmanka was the titles of the performances I will talk about, performances with so many different characteristics, styles and ways of expression.


“Collectif Petit Travers” is a French company which organize many different projects. Cirque, theatre, graphic design, fine arts. The performance I attended had characteristics of circus and mime theatre. Two musicians who live in a room, they are trying to get along together, putting on so much psychological pressure each one to another, till a duct of water breaks and the room fills with water. In my opinion, the most interesting part was the way the two performers created the space during the performance. Having a very simple set design, in 70 mins they achieved to recreate the space, carrying the furniture in different corners in the room, like having different rooms in one empty stage. In the end, the stage full of water, and the two performers in the middle, sit on the pile of furniture, they gave the impression of Noah’s ark. I found this performance clever, with dainty tricks and its set design effective.



“Family Floez” it’s a German company, experts of mask theatre. “Hotel Paradiso” was the performance which presented in Mime Festival. In a hotel strange things are happening and a family story appears to the audience. In my opinion, the masks worked very nice in the play, and that was the stronger characteristic of the performance – whereas, criticizing from an aesthetic point of view I didn’t found the figures quite attractive. The set design was very neutral and realistic, just transferring the audience in a German spa resort.
In general, I was too interested in both two performances, as they are very close to my research field.