Mime in America today is a many-faceted art form without a single clear definition or a place to call its own. Mime is sometimes joined with theatre, sometimes placed with dance. To some people it is street mime or clowns but since 1955, when Marcel Marceau took the country by storm, most people associate mime with white-face illusionary pantomime vignettes, if they think of mime at all.

When David White produced four American mime artists in September 1980 under the heading “New Mime: New Investigations in a Theatre of Movement” at the Dance Theatre Workshop, it was no accident that the word “new” was used twice in the title. By presenting some of the most imaginative concert artists working in mime today, White took an innovative step toward reaching a fresh audience for what has been consistently a neglected stepchild of the arts.