M.I.M.E. was formed in New York City in the spring of 1999 as a collective effort to revitalize the art form of mime. As our rite of initiation, the original members—Delia Gonzales, Chris Holstad, Sigrún Hrolfsdottir, Aleksandra Mir and Gavin Russom—paid tribute to Marcel Marceau by attending his performance at the Kaye Playhouse in Manhattan. Not surprisingly, we found this old master to be hopelessly out of touch with contemporary society and its needs for performance. In fact, we thought his coffee mugs and baseball cap souvenirs on sale in the lobby were more current than his activities on stage. And we were shocked to find so many androgynous wannabe’s in the audience, wearing funny hats but no underwear.

Other than that, M.I.M.E. has paid little attention to the traditions of performance art, but that is the result of each of our individual explorations of performance in society: Gavin Russom’s New Orleans tour with his character Mystic Satin, an act that takes the magic out of the magic act, leaving just the performance; Delia Gonzales’s and Chris Holstad’s wildly celebrated past as members of the ambitious dance troupe Fancy Pantz, which derived its choreography from the ambitious study of music videos; Delia’s and Gavin’s entertainment duo Dream Machine, which warned us at the end of the millennium about our eagerness to succeed; Sigrún Hrolfsdottir’s continuous partnership in the immensely prolific Icelandic Love Corporation, which faces up to the exchange values of Love; and Aleksandra Mir’s art of political activism that inverts dogma. It all adds up to a common-sense kind of mime.

We never set down any rules for M.I.M.E. but get together when we feel like being mimes and do what we think a mime might want to do at any given moment and situation. Due to our disparate schedules and geographic dislocation, the five of us have never even managed to appear intact as a group. But we don’t mind to mime in solitude, or together with other guest mimes. Both friends and family members have contributed to M.I.M.E.

Among our appearances, there has been a couple of M.I.M.E. swims in public pools in Europe and the US, a Ku Klux Klan M.I.M.E. in a private gallery in New York, various M.I.M.E. events honoring French culture, M.I.M.E. drinking in bars (involving the public) and solitude M.I.M.E. meditations deep in the Icelandic interior. M.I.M.E. has been on Public Access TV and made a special project for the literary magazine Open City.

One day, we would like to create a large, ambitious M.I.M.E. opera at the Met or mime for the Pope. So far, our most ambitious attempt, the mimodrama ‘Life is Beautiful’, conceived for the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in May 1999, was cancelled due to budget restraints. M.I.M.E., however, is the undiscriminating ability to produce oneself in and transcend any given condition or framework.

It is great freedom to be M.I.M.E.

1999

Fleetweek M.I.M.E. . . . Times Square, NYC, 5/5
Supermarket M.I.M.E. . . . Key Foods, Avenue A, NYC, 6/1
The M.I.M.E.Swim . . . Krommerin Public Bath, Utrecht, 6/20
Drunk M.I.M.E. . . . Local Bar, Utrecht, 6/20
Iceland M.I.M.E. . . . Kongshakki, Snaefellsnes, 6/15
M.I.M.E. for Open City . . . The Zoo and Rose Garden, Prospect Park, NYC, 7/3
The second M.I.M.E. Swim . . . Asser Levy Public Pool, NYC, 7/8
Nightlife M.I.M.E. . . . Gavin Brown's enterprise, NYC, 7/12

2000

Turn off the lights M.I.M.E. . . . Public Access, 1/10
Sunday Sport M.I.M.E. . . . East River Park, NYC, 3/19

2001

French party M.I.M.E. . . . East Village, 2/8

2003
M.I.M.E. Reunited. . . Paris

BIBLIOGRAPHY

M.I.M.E. . . . Open City, Fall 1999, Number Nine, NYC.

Scripts for three mimodramas by Sigrun Hrolfsdottir
and one ending by Aleksandra Mir

M.I.M.E  #1

The ambulance will arrive in the courtyard. I would love if we could get a reckless driver who would screech on the gravel surface. People would be alarmed. M.I.M.E.s would look out the windows. Two M.I.M.E.s would be sitting in front with the driver, which is the American way. M.I.M.E.s would wait for the people and the car engine to calm down. Then M.I.M.E.s would very very elaborately and slowly mimishly open all ambulance doors and crawl out like zombies from B-movies. Except for the driver who would wear sunglasses and just chill in the car. (Maybe he would be listening to a tape, which would be playing total redneck music, Lyrnd Skynrd for example, but not too loud.) M.I.M.E.s would then make a circle around the ambulance. We are five people so it would have to be kind of assymetrical. M.I.M.E. # 1 would then pull a small ball from a secret compartment in its attire, and mimishly throw it over the ambulance. That way a MIME GAME would start.

M.I.M.E # 2

An ambulance screeches on the gravel surface in a courtyard of a famous museum. People look up. All of a sudden M.I.M.E.s open the back door of the ambulance and throw out ten or more big pillows. M.I.M.E.s carefully aim their shots with the pillows. M.I.M.E. # 1 then jumps out mimishly onto one pillow. Then another and another. With every new M.I.M.E. jumping from the ambulance, another makes the hard jump to the next pillow. M.I.M.E.s never touch the earth. After a while the circle is concluded and M.I.M.E.s all make it more or less safely back to their ambulance. The driver then takes them home.

M.I.M.E # 3

An ambulance arrives with full sirens screaming in the courtyard. Then slowly it comes to a halt. The noise is turned down and things seem to slow down all together. Then there is a sudden jump at the rear end. Slowly the whole truck starts rocking from obvious movement inside it. There are knocks and jumps and little screams and laughter and giggles. Five free people (like in commercials) burst out of the back of the ambulance. They love the fresh air. They all express it in their mimely way. M.I.M.E. # 4 has a little bundle under its arm. It’s a little tent. M.I.M.E.s help each other raise the tent. They all are soooo enthusiastic about it. The tent is black and white and M.I.M.E.s dance around it. Then they peel off all their extra white fabric and make a little campfire. M.I.M.E.s can do everything. One has a guitar one, has a harmonica, one has marshmallows. But it is all invisible to other people.

One ending

After an hour of various camping activities the M.I.M.E.s begin to pack up their stuff. The ambulance is slightly overcrowded. The skis and the tent stick out, the inflatable M.I.M.E. canoe is still half inflated. The grill needs cleaning but nobody wants to do it. Tired but happy they all take their seats in the ambulance and wave good-bye. The sirens go on. The ambulance backs out and leaves the courtyard. But wait!!! It suddenly stops and there is silence. The back door opens and the smallest M.I.M.E. jumps out and runs back to the campsite. They forgot their caged canary. She opens the cage and lets the canary free. (It probably doesn’t fly very far, but still, the symbolism is what counts.) The M.I.M.E. ambulance drives away.

Good-bye

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

New York, April 6, 1999

Thank you for considering M.I.M.E. for your upcoming performance event. As per our phone conversation yesterday, we understand that there is no funding set aside for the artists in this program and will thus unfortunately not be able to participate. The half-hour mimodrama ‘Life is Beautiful’, which we thought to present, was conceived as a site-specific piece for P.S.1. It is an ambitious and demanding work that includes both the hire of an ambulance to enter the courtyard on (with the sirens on full blast) and the plastering of our limbs to constrict our movements—a state which will last for several hours.

During the summer months, M.I.M.E. will be performing spontaneously in various public and private spaces. We would therefore hope that our relationship with the museum would be a mutually supportive one: our material costs list only the bare disposable necessities, and our fee is merely symbolic.

Feel free to keep our budget and proposal on file for your summer series. We are able to put the production together on a two-week notice, but as some of the mimes may be traveling during the summer, please check back with us ahead of time.

We are looking forward to raising our black and white tent and burning our marshmallows in your courtyard,

Sincerely,

M.I.M.E.

By Chris Holstad

The M.I.M.E.s appeared recently at a ’60s French scene party where we made $80. Here is the scenario:

6 mimodramas were to be performed.

Cast was Delia Gonzales with a hot little off-the-shoulder striped # she made. Very glamorous. Gavin was also a sight for eyes needing goodness. He recently got an old French moustache-and-mouth party favor still on cardboard, which was worn as a mask. I had on all black, with white make-up and black thread hanging off my face as accents, and flip-up round glasses.

#1

We arrived at the club with a 15-foot baguette (many bread loaves attached together with hot glue and tongue depressors). This fell apart on the ride over. We put Saran Wrap™ around the bread to keep it together. We came into the space with the baguette and Delia pulled a sparkler out of the bread and mimed being the Statue of Liberty, in homage to the French gift. Gavin pulled a flash light out of the bread and shined it at the guests’ privates and eyes. I hung my butt off the edge of the stage and pooped out 7 feet of bread. We of course had a soundtrack of French music and movie montage.

#2

Delia and Gavin came out and made out in different areas of the club. I followed their faces with flashlight. Backwards French music with screams. They kept on mashing mouth until much fake blood came from their mouths. Still kissing while Gavin now shoots them with illegal cap guns in the head. Gavin said he was as close to throwing up as possible from the intense fructose in the fake blood.

#3

A 6-foot beret was made of cardboard. We all came out under it and ran back and forth to some more montaged sound track. This made us laugh a lot and feel sick.

#4

I came out with a white sheet with black daisies and laid it in the center of the room. Gavin was in charge of the flashlight this time. Delia began untying a red scarf from my neck. I fell onto the daisies revealing the picture of Aleister Crowley on my back. The red scarf was coming from the point of his finger. Delia pulled 20 feet of red from this source. A drunk man in the audience wanted to assist Delia as soon as she started so Gavin proceeded to blind him for the rest of the program with the flashlight. Also fucked up music.

#5

Another big beret sequence. Much laughter by us and feeling sick. Too much spinning and laughing.

At this point we were asked to not perform any more. We are real mimes. I feel very close to my fellow mime family. Marcel, Jean, Michael Jackson, I love you.

We were paid and then we left.
love always chris.

texts on M.I.M.E.: