Bureaus Exclusive

Mime master gives charity performance in Dalian

By Zhang Xiaomin (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-10-25 17:29

Philippe Bizot (Right) invites a Chinese student to perform together with him at Dalian School for Deaf-mutes chuckled, October 21, 2010. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

A naughty boy Jin Hongshen, 12, in Dalian School for Deaf-mutes chuckled and said he wanted Philippe Bizot, French master of mime, to perform how to herd a donkey. Jin's fellow students burst into laughter and were eager to see what would happen.

Bizot pretended to be angry and went to drag Jin onto the stage. They seemed to have a tacit understanding. Amid the cheers, Bizot dragged Jin's collar and Jin stooped down and stretched his hands towards the ground to act as a donkey.

The master ad-libbed following the requests of the students after he performed one of his masterpieces "The Silence of 30 Years", which won the Gold Prize at the Chile International Pantomime Festival in 2007.

He improvised how to cling eagerly to hope, how to study in senior high school, and how to catch a thief with Chinese Kungfu.

The students feasted their eyes on his performance.

"The students are really active and keenly perceptive," Bizot told China Daily, "I don't regard them as special audience. They're the same as other audience around the world."

"The handicapped students need communication. And we need to build a bridge for them to touch the society," he said.

Philippe Bizot dazzled the audience with six performances, themed as "Love without Frontier", from October 20 to 24 in Dalian.

The charity performance was organized by the Alliance Française of Dalian, one of the 15 Chinese branches of the Paris-based non-profit organization Alliance Française, which aims to foster French language and culture all over the world.