Join us for a series of short performances and interviews with local mime Michael Lee and special guests O.J. Anderson and Perry Perrault. The performance, which will consist of short 4-6 minute pieces will be for many, an introduction to “the actor’s art” of mime. With credit given to the mime artists that inspired and taught Michael Lee, we’ll connect the dots between legendary mimes, and the local Ann Arbor mimes who knew and trained with them.

This project is part of AADL’s commemoration of the city’s bicentennial year.

What About Mime

What is mime? It turns out it depends on who you ask. Broadly speaking, the tradition has its roots in ancient theater in cultures across the globe. Many people envision street pantomimes with white face paint, while practitioners of the theater tradition emphasize the use of the entire body to convey expression and emotion. What does the art of mime have to do with the history of Ann Arbor? In the heyday of mime performance in the 1980s, dozens of event listings featuring mime could be found throughout the calendar year. From Marcel Marceau’s annual visits to the Ann Arbor Summer Festival and his brief stint in Ann Arbor at the Marcel Marceau World Center for Mime to the countless groups and performers--the University of Michigan’s Mimetroupe, Artworlds Center for the Creative Arts, Mimetroupe of America, OPUS Mime, EMU Master Mimes, and more--mime dotted Ann Arbor’s cultural landscape. Mime was sure to be found at Summer Festival, Winter Festival and the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, the Graceful Arch becoming known as a site where one would certainly encounter a mime or pantomime. Even the 1973 Blues & Jazz Fest featured pantomime by the British troupe "Friends Roadshow," who would in the following years build a base in Ann Arbor and participate in the city’s Sesquicentennial celebration. The group often performed at local venues such as Chances Are/Second Chance and The Blind Pig with their outrageously-named Michael Spaghetti’s ½ Ring Circus. 

When the word “mime” is mentioned, do you imagine white face paint? If so, it is because of Marcel Marceau’s widely known character “Bip the clown”, based on Jean-Gaspard Deburau’s 19th-century silent, white-faced character Pierrot in the tradition of commedia dell'arte. Because Marceau was so popular, and the art of mime so tied to his success in the American mind, the white face paint that Marceau adopted for his character became synonymous with mime. However, it was not a tradition associated with the art historically. In a 1984 interview for the Ann Arbor News, Marceau emphasized that the makeup was “not traditional or even typical,” but that in his workshops here in town he sees “mostly white faces. But to create ‘little Bips,’ or ‘little Marceaus’ – that is not what I want.” Despite this plea, much of the mime seen around town in the 1970s-1990s was a direct homage to Marceau's iconic character. 

Beginnings: Local Interest Arises

Before the 1950s in Ann Arbor, the word “Mime” would likely bring to mind the all-male performing group at the University of Michigan known as the Mimes Union Opera, active from 1908-1930 with a few revivals in the following decades. That would all change by the mid-1950s when world-famous mime Marcel Marceau toured the United States for the first time and soon became a household name. Marceau made his first appearance in Ann Arbor at Hill Auditorium on December 5, 1960 as part of the final season of the University of Michigan’s Oratorical Association Platform Attractions series, which traced its origins back to 1854. 

When Marceau performed for the University Musical Society (UMS) in 1971, he became the first performer to ever grace the stage of the newly completed Power Center. The 1960s would see a slow rise in programming related to mime, with the Ann Arbor Civic Ballet offering courses in mime, bringing in international mime troupes, and inviting the San Francisco Mime Troupe to town.

In 1972, ArtWorlds, a nonprofit school of art, was founded at 213 ½ S Main Street by engineer Cecil Taylor and his wife Barbara Taylor. Though the couple left for California in 1980, the arts organization continued for another three years, routinely offering courses in mime taught by Michael Filisky, Perry Perrault, Mark Novotny, and Mark Strong, to name just a few.  At its height, the organization offered over 75 classes, employed 40 instructors, and enrolled over 800 students in courses that ranged from “fire eating” to magic, masks, and the classic but now nearly forgotten “Rhythm-meter-hand jive”. 

In May 1975, the second annual Invitational Festival of Experimental Theater, described by the Ann Arbor Sun as a “temporary aggregation of approximately 20 theatre, mime, and dance troupes.” Among them was the local "Friends Road Show" (a troupe living on a communal farm in Milan) and the Living Theatre at a number of venues: Michigan Union, Waterman Gym, and Trueblood Auditorium. That same year, the sixth annual Medieval Festival featured Michael Filisky’s recently-formed Mimetroupe’s interpretation of Boccaccio’s work, which was performed exclusively in mime, alongside “authentic” medieval performances and dances. Filisky became the well-known local figure in mime of the 1970s, and would remain a vibrant part of the community until he moved to New York in in the early 1980s.

The 1980’s Mime Boom in Ann Arbor

By the 1980s, Ann Arbor’s love of the art of mime was in full swing. Experimental mime, (or "new mime") featured abstraction, with troupes like Mummenschanz and Paul Gaulin’s Mime Company performing in extreme contrast to Marceau, and bringing a range of approaches to town. Mime became so popular that University of Michigan Mimetroupe’s event posters disappeared an alarming rate; the group attempted to cut them in half to dissuade theft, because, as one member said: “they are real collectors items.” Even with new styles and approaches on the horizon, Marceau became the face of the inaugural Ann Arbor Summer Festival in July 1984. He would return semi-annually to teach intensive workshops and make appearances at the festival in the following years. 

In anticipation of the first Ann Arbor Summer Festival, the Ann Arbor News proclaimed “Marcel Marceau’s love affair with Ann Arbor” and documented responses from local mimes; O.J. Anderson, sometimes referred to as the “good time mime”, noted “His [Marceau’s] is the art, mine is the act. My art is the entertainment,” which often consisted of bringing audience participants on stage and even speaking a line or two, earning him another title: “the World’s Only Talking Mime.” Perry Perrault, founder of the University of Michigan Mime Troupe in 1981 and Ann Arbor Mimeworks in 1988, noted that his approach contrasted to both Anderson and Marceau’s styles as he preferred to focus his energy on collaborative, group performances. 

With the help of Eugene Power, Lou Belcher, and Thomas Monaghan (of Domino’s Pizza), Marceau became the central figure for the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, and dreamed of opening an official school here. Though it never materialized, the space was originally conceptualized as a “350-seat theater, mime museum, and office space with rehearsal rooms.” The Marcel Marceau World Center for Mime taught seminars associated with the school for two years in town before the center faced bankruptcy. In a 2013 interview, Susan Pollay, former director of the Summer Festival, remembered that the center “was here in Ann Arbor in an instant and then it disappeared.” The following summer, Marceau was notably absent from both the Summer Festival itself and the annual Summer Mime Seminar.

Changing Attitudes Toward Mime: New Approaches Arrive

A Michigan Daily calendar listing on July 15, 1988, advertised the upcoming  series “Influences in Mime” at the Marcel Marceau World Center for Mime with the note: "'Everyone loves a clown. Everyone hates a mime,' said Sam Malone on an episode of Cheers. Decide for yourself…” As in the previous decades, Ann Arborites would have many opportunities to make that decision. In the late 1980s, Stefan Niedziałkowski, a renowned Polish mime artist, taught at Marcel Marceau’s Paris School and frequented Ann Arbor; he later became a resident at Marceau’s short-lived school and taught courses around town. From 1988-1993, Niedziałkowski had a base here for his mime company, Theatre Milchenye, and brought with him new forms of mime that would inspire future generations of artists. 

One such artist inspired by Niedziałkowski is Michael Lee, a local dramatist who specializes in mime. Lee first trained under Perry Perrault after he moved to Ann Arbor in 1984. Three years later he studied at the ephemeral Marcel Marceau School of Mime in Ann Arbor, then under Niedziałkowski, and quickly joined the local scene as a professional mime. Lee established his own OPUS Mime Troupe in 1994 at the former Washtenaw Council for the Arts loft at 122 S Main St. In their debut calendar event listing in the Michigan Daily, changing attitudes toward mime are employed as a marketing tactic, with OPUS mime cheekily stating: “This mime troupe blends the body of a gymnast, the mind of an actor and the heart of a poet into their shows. Who cares, nobody likes mimes anyway.” 

Performances in mime continued around town without the fervor of the past decades, but with a presence nonetheless. In 2001 the 78-year-old Marceau became the recipient of the University of Michigan Musical Society’s Distinguished Artist Award. As part of the residency, Marceau taught students of dance and drama for two weeks, followed by a performance that would add to his resume of over 30 Ann Arbor stage appearances. 

Continuing into the new millennium, Michael Lee set up a new office on East Washington. There, he ran a business that offered courses in mime to local schools, including Milan Schools and Rudolf Steiner. Lee stressed the difference between mime and pantomime in the Ann Arbor Observer's August 2000 edition, noting that true mime is an “art of the body as dramatic tool … that includes 264 hand positions and body positions that go back to Greco-Roman sculpture.” Leaving behind the Marceau-inspired white face paint, Lee created his own interpretation of the classic art of mime. By 2002, Lee had secured a grant to perform a work in mime, but was ultimately turned down by a local festival and could not locate a theater to perform in. The physical office in Ann Arbor closed, but a year and a half later he returned to mime part-time. Over the next years, he would continue his involvement with the Performance Network and participate in workshops, theater productions, and festivals in Washtenaw County.   In 2011, Lee and Perrault performed for Chelsea High School theater students after Opus Mime completed a two-week residency. Since then, Lee has moved away from Ann Arbor, but continues to teach and perform in Michigan and beyond. 

While mime no longer has the hold on Ann Arbor it once had, the lively tradition had a strong influence on the performing arts community here that still lingers today. 

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“Lockard the teacher, the mentor and a griot…[Griot—a member of a class of traveling poets, musicians, (artists) and storytellers who maintain a tradition of oral history in parts of West Africa.]" – Dr. Ed Jackson Jr.

Artist Jon Onye Lockard At Washtenaw Community College, November 7, 1997

Known for his portraits, murals, and his inspirational teaching style, Jon Onye Lockard was a prolific artist, educator, and mentor. He made countless contributions not just in Ann Arbor, but around the globe. Jon is remembered for his unwavering devotion to teaching and promoting the artistic representation of Blackness, rebutting centuries of racist imagery, with a steadfast commitment to social justice and to the broader civil rights movement: 

“Painting throughout his life different depictions of Blackness in its myriad of possibilities brought him great joy … He wanted the world to see how beautiful Blackness was, because growing up at a time when that was not emphasized impacted him to want things to change and be better.” - Elizabeth James, former student and current staff at the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies [D’AAS]

Mural Painting In Midtown Park At Huron & Main Street, November 1973

Today, murals seem almost commonplace. They are found all around town created by a range of artists, executed in many styles. This was not always the case, and in 1982, former student, artist, and professor Mike Mosher wrote: “the majority of murals in schools, institutions and on the street in the Ann Arbor area, when not directly involving Lockard, are the work of students who’ve passed through his classes and influence.” Though many of these early student murals are no longer here, many of his works remain around town. 

“Working in murals demands a sense of consciousness, a sense of the rhythms happening in the community, the country, or the world.” — Jon Onye Lockard

From the Ann Arbor News, May 22, 1981

Locally, Lockard’s murals can be found at University of Michigan’s residence halls and multicultural lounges in South and West Quad. Numerous paintings and a mural honoring legendary Washtenaw Community College [WCC] faculty member Dr. Morris Lawrence Jr. are on WCC’s campus. Nearby universities and museums proudly present his works, such as his renowned mural ‘Continuum' at Wayne State University’s Manoogian Center. His work is collected internationally and can be found in public and private collections.

The Early Years of John Melvin Lockard

John Lockard, 1949 from the Arrow, Eastern High School

“One must know where you came from to know where you are going” – Jon Lockard

Jon Onye Lockard was born as John Melvin Lockard January 25, 1932 in Detroit to Cecil E. Lockard and Lillian Jones. He was the middle child, with an older brother named Cecil E. Lockard, after their father. Cecil Jr. would also become an influential figure in Ann Arbor, working as a photographer for the Ann Arbor News for decades.

John Lockard was born during the Great Depression, came of age at the start of white flight in the Detroit area, and experienced unofficial segregation at the schools he attended in the region. The young Lockard was educated at Eastern High School in Detroit, where he had already begun participating in the arts, sports, and acted as a member of the yearbook staff, graduating in 1949. 

John Lockard, member of Eastern High School's yearbook staff, 1949

After high school, he began working at Ovelton Sign where he experienced harsh working conditions and segregation. He attended Meinzinger School of Art in Detroit and, shortly after, Wayne State University where he would earn his Bachelor’s. Then, he received his Master’s degree at University of Toronto in 1958 before returning to the Detroit area and establishing himself in Ann Arbor.

Jon Onye Lockard: A Great Teacher Emerges

During this period, John dropped the ‘h’ in his name, officially becoming Jon Lockard. Later in the 1960s, a member of his travel group in Nigeria said he should be “Onye Eje/Ije”, which in the Igbo language means “artistic traveler” or “the traveling artist who has many friends,” a name he would adopt, changing his name officially to Jon Onye Lockard.

In November 1964, Lockard celebrated the grand opening of the Ann Arbor Art Center, (of no relation to the current Ann Arbor Art Center–which was, at the time, the Ann Arbor Art Association) his first studio at 215 S. Fourth Ave. During this time he was working “nine days a week” in Ann Arbor, but he still lived in Detroit. He would move to Ann Arbor by 1971, around the same time his studio moved into the old Ann Arbor Railroad Depot building at 416 S. Ashley.

From the Huron Valley Ad-Visor, September 1, 1965

In 1968, advocacy from Black scholars and students worked to include Black Studies programs and push for higher enrollment of Black students, a movement that was gaining traction across the country. The Daily reported in 1969 that the LSA program would begin offering an Afro-American Studies major. 

Black Artist's Festival Advertisement, Michigan Daily, November 13, 1969

At the University of Michigan, Jon quickly found himself inhabiting several roles: supporting the Black Action Movement, and participating in the first annual Black Artist's Festival in 1969. The following year he co-founded the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies (Renamed D’AAS in 2011) as an interdisciplinary program that would focus on histories that had been ignored—or worse, taught with factual inaccuracy by other history departments. Elizabeth James reflects on the personal significance of this change: “The History of Art department wasn't offering courses in [the African diaspora] at that time, so I checked with the then-Center for Afroamerican and African Studies. Jon Lockard was teaching a survey course on the arts of Africa. It was an amazing experience that transformed my life.” 

In December 1969, Lockard was brought on at WCC as part of the newly founded Black Studies Program. In 1970, Lockard would organize the first show of Black students’ works in an outdoor exhibit, while the campus expanded programs for Black students through the Black Studies Program and the creation of the WCC Black Student Union. 

Lockard continued to teach at both universities for 40 years. His former students fondly remember that he would make sure to play music before and after each of his classes. Elizabeth James remembers: “He always played music before and after his classes began, setting the scene for the lessons to be learned each day. He deeply believed in developing critical thinking skills so that you would remain curious about the world around you.”

Lockard’s reputation for being a “difficult” teacher is also fondly remembered by students. He would not let students get away with lack of participation, and he thereby enriched their educational experiences. Former colleague Bamidele Agbasegbe-Demerson says, "you had to always raise questions because it was through raising questions that you interrogated the subject. You came to some decisions and ultimately, hopefully an understanding.” Mike Mosher recalls that he would not just let students “do their own thing,” that “his classes were dedicated to learning to represent the human figure accurately … you had to demonstrate skill in drawing a model in a full range of values with a single black or brown Conte crayon.”

In addition to his teaching in formal university settings, Jon co-founded organizations such as Our Own Thing, where he offered his knowledge to students participating in scholarship programs. He was a co-founder and acted as Associate Director of the Society for the Study of African American Culture and Aesthetics, and in 1983 was elected president of the African American arts organization National Conference of Artists (NCA). 

'Our Own Thing' Helps Students Study In Arts, from the Ann Arbor News, September 18, 1971

Lockard’s former student and working artist Earl Jackson remembers a trip Lockard led for the NCA to Dakar, Senegal, noting the profound influence it had on his artistic direction. Lockard emphasized the importance of color in his teachings, focusing on the differences in meanings associated with colors across cultures. Lockard’s work participated in a dialogue of artworks by members of the African diaspora, which led to the creation of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s-70s, a movement of art toward an “African American aesthetic” that Lockard helped develop throughout his career along with contemporaries and friends such as Bing Davis. 

In line with his mission to promote an African and African American aesthetic in his work, Jon found inspiration in words and concepts throughout history. Sankofa, for example, was one of Lockard’s most revered philosophies. As he interpreted it, “there is wisdom in learning from the past and one’s roots, to ensure a strong future moving forward.” Lockard used this term repeatedly throughout his career: as the title of his show “Sankofa”, originally aired on Barden Cable Television of Detroit from, and as the title of his biweekly journal. In 2000, the Center for Afroamerican Studies named a gallery for Lockard that launched with an inaugural exhibit titled “Looking Back but Seeing Ahead: Sankofa and Creativity.”

A Case for the Inseparability of Art & Politics

In 1983, a year after an unsuccessful lawsuit against the Ann Arbor Street Fair, Lockard spoke with Susan Nisbett of the Ann Arbor News. She wrote: “Lockard expressed a desire to talk about art, rather than politics,” followed by the statement: “In the broadest sense, however, to talk about the one with Lockard is to talk about the other.” Lockard’s artistic philosophy and choice of subject matter from the beginning was focused on Black and African American representation. He knew that his works were provocative and made white audience members uncomfortable at times, but that above all else “art has a responsibility to tell the truth.”

From the Michigan Daily, June 16, 1982

In his early career, Jon Lockard was known as a traveling portraitist, having attended the yearly show at the Ann Arbor Street Fair since its founding. His on-site portrait work was so popular it was known to have drawn large crowds, with art fair organizers strategically placing Lockard’s booth to draw visitors to the far reaches of the event. Though Lockard had by all accounts been a cherished member of the annual art fairs, a legal battle erupted when in 1982, the Ann Arbor Street Fair Jury rejected Lockard as a participant for the first time in 22 years. The rejection of Lockard’s application was based on charges of exhibiting “commercially printed prints” and works by other artists. Lockard did in fact exhibit the work of another artist: a student who had reproduced Lockard’s works as stained glass “faithfully transcribing” from Lockard’s original paintings. 

An ad hoc committee was quickly formed in support of Lockard after his rejection from the fair. The Committee for Salvation of the Human Experience in the Visual Arts (SHEVA) members included Bob Medellin, Leslie Kamil (then Kamil-Miller), and Bamidele Agbasegbe-Demerson. The art fair at the time noted that this was a routine experience for veteran exhibitors, one that would continue to amplify in the following years. Lockard and his committee, however, weren’t the only ones to push back. Carolyn Kilpatrick, a democrat from Detroit at the time and House majority whip, commented in support of Lockard and his cause along with the mayor of Ypsilanti and many Ann Arbor residents. Critics pointed out that in a typical fair of 300 exhibitors, it was estimated that a maximum of four artists were Black each year.

A New York-based law firm, the Center for Constitutional Rights, founded by William Kuntsler also found the case to be worthwhile, and lawyer Mike Gombiner made a case that the jury had violated the artist’s due process freedom of expression on the basis of racial discrimination. Though the case was unsuccessful for Lockard's reinstatement in the fair, it had a lasting impact, and not only on the jurying process. After the case was dismissed, the Art Fair’s lawyer James Erady responded that procedures for jurying were under review. Leslie Kamil notes that “the beauty of the case is that it created the need and the requirement for art fairs to have standards and screening criteria.” Change was introduced locally when City Councilman Larry Hunter proposed that the Art Fair Jury annually submit its findings to the City Council for review ‘to make a public matter public’, but also for the nation as a whole, raising awareness on the potential for bias and discrimination in jurying processes. 

The Later Years: Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial & Continuing Legacy

Artist, Jon Lockard's Studio Door With Message About Martin Luther King Jr.'s Death, April 1968
When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968, Lockard placed a sign on 215 S. Fourth Ave studio: “Closed due to the death of a friend Dr. Martin Luther King.” Nearly twenty years later in 1996, Jon Lockard was chosen as one of five African American men to advise on the creation of a national monument honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Senior Art Advisor for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. 

Lockard worked alongside Dr. Ed Jackson as the Executive Architect and Taubman College Professor Emeritus of Architecture James Chaffers Jr. to select an artist to produce the statue, which would be unveiled in 2011 in Washington D.C.’s National Mall. 

Jon Onye Lockard & James Chaffers, September 7, 1998

Lockard worked on various aspects of the project, from planning to fundraising to construction. The group worked on determining the monuments’ final location, had a design competition and then selected the sculptor, Lei Yixin, a Chinese artist who was the best of the best of artists working in granite globally. Lockard went with members of the committee to China to see a mockup of the statue and offer comments on changes. Leslie Kamil accompanied Lockard, and recalls that he and others in the group had a tense discussion about what expression Martin Luther King Jr. should have, ultimately dissuading the artist from his original design that portrayed King as a “warrior.” Dr. Ed Jackson Jr. remembers Jon throughout the process as “my rock, my defender, my linebacker”, additionally noting that his project marked “the first time a group of African Americans have attempted to build a memorial of this scale on the national mall” and faced national scrutiny. 

"It's only a journey when you have a destination." – Jon Lockard

Portrait of Jon Lockard, date unknown

Jon Onye Lockard died March 24, 2015 in Ann Arbor and is buried at Washtenong Memorial Park and Mausoleum. His legacy continues with his three children, his works of art and murals, his students, and Lockard’s Visions of Destiny (DBA), now protected by the Jon Onye Lockard Foundation. His students, colleagues, and family remember him fondly, with a nod toward his lasting impact on their lives and the lives of others through his questioning nature and unending passion for teaching. Elizabeth James wrote: “I can't think of a time when he didn't ask some question that would leave you pondering the answer. He was a griot and a visionary all at once.” 

Bamidele Agbasegbe-Demerson remembers that Jon, while he was a professor and academic, was ultimately a “Ph.B,” a play on “Ph.D., the Doctor of Philosophy. But John would say that he is a Ph.B., a practicing human being.” This approach to life, “embodies in some ways the totality of all the different hats that he wore … whatever he did. He always strived to be a human being, a practicing human being, a Ph.B.” Today, Lockard’s legacy continues to influence new generations with his vast contributions to the art world and civil rights, which beg audiences to continue asking questions and seeking answers, but most of all creating a dialogue with one another.

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