Czech pantomime celebrates a jubilee

Festival Mimraj 2006 starts today in Prague streets and will last with breaks and also with some travelling to other Czech towns until the very end of the year. The festival should celebrate the art of pantomime and mainly its modern aspects such as clown elements or the grotesque. Czech pantomime is today namely fifty years old.

The festival opens at four o’clock with a parade under the motto of “expelling the boredom from Prague”. It starts in Clementinum, continues through the town centre including the Old Town Square and then returns back to its starting point in Clementinum. On the first August day fifty years ago at the very same place conservatory graduates performed three pantomime performances. One of the dancers L. Fialka started Czech tradition of this art and managed, despite the iron curtain, to gain fame and respect worldwide.

Three pantomime performances that can be seen tonight in Clementinum from nine o’clock do not want to be seen as an attempt for a mere reconstruction. Their authors and performers would like to celebrate pantomime as an art undergoing its Renaissance and want to draw attention to its new aspects. The opening performances can be seen in Clementinum area for free. The name of the festival itself implies the watchers have a lot to look forward to since Mimraj could be freely translated as a paradise of the mimes.