The purpose of that title is to "hook' ordinary HSB readers... aka people who wouldn't normally read my blog. :) Who wouldn't want to see pictures of a mime presentation? Obviously you do, or you wouldn't be reading this! Be patient for a minute; some background is required...

Last year, AIM (our mime troupe - more info on AIM here) was invited to do a presentation at Young Christians' Weekend, an annual event that Silver Dollar City does. SDC opens for a weekend before their actual opening date, brings in a bunch of Christian music artists and speakers, and invites youth groups from around the country to be a part of it. It's really neat. But I digress.

Last year, we took a subset of our team and did two presentations at YCW. It was pouring down rain. Mimes dashing through Silver Dollar City in a pouring rain... not a pretty sight. However, since we were presenting indoors, it did make for a really big crowd!

This year, it only sprinkled a little bit, and crowds were smaller, but I was really proud of the team. They did a great job (notwithstanding whatever Jessica says to the contrary!).

We arrived at the City at around 11:00, and split up to eat lunch and ride some rides before meeting at the Saloon (the venue for our presentation - it's totally clean, really!) at 1:30. Jess, Jo, and I were paired with Madison and Jarek, two younger members of the team who had only been to the City 2-3 times before. So we let them ride all the rides they'd never ridden, plus some of their old favorites. It was really neat to see how much they enjoyed themselves!

We met back at 1:30 and stood around for about 20 minutes while the group before us (the Skinny Improv) finished their show. We were presenting at 2:30 and 4:00, so we ran through transitions and then the team members ran backstage to get their mime faces on.

I'm going to give you a rundown of the show that is kind of a composite of the two presentations, since there weren't that many differences between the two. If something happened only in one presentation, I'll note it.

The theme of the show was "Where Are You Going?" We opened with a fun song, Satan Bite the Dust. The setting for the song is an Old West saloon, so it was a very fitting opener for a presentation in the Silver Dollar City Saloon! The song is not quite funny, but it is very fun. The props are very flamboyant - police vest (with Sherriff badge) for the Christian, petite cowgirl hats for the servers, red cape for Satan. Demons hide under card tables, get conked on the head, and get thrown around the room. Josiah told me one detail that I had not noticed before: "We play cards with Satan, and he cheats!" Below: a representative scene from Satan, Bite the Dust. See if you can pick out the servers, Christian, and demon.

After Satan Bite the Dust, Jory (founder of AIM and co-director of local team) came up and introduced our team and the theme of the presentation. Four of the mimes stayed out on the stage, holding their poses from the end of Satan Bite the Dust. Suddenly, one of them got up to leave. The ensuing conversation was something like this:

JORY: Amy, where are you going?
AMY: (shrugs, points to mouth)
JORY: Oh, mimes can't talk.
AMY: (pulls a paper out of her pocket and hands it to Jory)
JORY: (reading paper) You're going... to be famous.
AMY: (goes off into the corner to admire herself in a mime mirror)

Then Josh gets up - he's going to be rich. Then Jessica - she's going to be the greatest! Finally, Aaron gets up.

JORY: And where are you going?
AARON: (pulls note out of pocket and hands it to Jory)
JORY: (slowly reading) You're going... to the bathroom. Guys, we have a show to do here!

It was absolutely hysterical.

Jessica almost smiled in her frozen pose, that's how hilarious it was.

Then Jonathan comes out carrying the Truth banner, and Jory explains that that is where we should really be going - toward truth. That sets up the next song - Truth March.

Truth March is a song that, as its name implies, involves a lot of marching! Essentially, God sends "marchers" out into the world carrying the message of truth, demons attack and defeat the marchers, God sends Jesus (who Satan crucifies), then Jesus and the truth marchers come back to life, and truth is victorious.

Below - the devil's brief moment of victory.

Below - truth's ETERNAL victory!

In the second presentation, the demons that attack the truth marchers came out about 30 seconds late! They are supposed to harass each person (with headaches, stabbing them in the side, etc.), then lasso them together and push them down. Well, they had time to give one person a stomachache and lasso one group before the cue came to push them down. The marchers kind of pushed themselves down. :)

In the first presentation, another pretty major mistake was at the end. We have two banners that come out at the end: one says "Every Knee," the other says "Shall Bow." On one East Coast Mission Trip presentations, the banners got switched and it said "Shall Bow Every Knee." Well, I think we've one-upped that, because in this presentation, it just said "Every Knee!" A certain brother of mine forgot that he was supposed to come up with the other sign, so that was... interesting.

The next song was Voice of Truth. In the first part, a guy (Ethan) confronts his boss with the truth, but his boss refuses to listen. The situation is compared to that of Peter walking on the water and losing his faith, and needing Jesus to pull him back up. There's this neat scene where Ethan actually steps into the scene and becomes Peter. Then a girl (Amy) is chewed out by her dad (Ethan's boss) for reading her Bible. This is compared to the story of David and Goliath. At the end of the song, Goliath is toppled, Peter is pulled from the waves, and the boss/dad, along with Amy's family and Ethan's co-workers, becomes a Christian. It's a neat song. It was originally choreographed for 8 people, and gets kind of chaotic with our 17, but the team did a good job of making it work.

Below - Peter walking on water

Below - ending pose. God looks kind of... scary, doesn't he?

Next - Not 4 Sale. A two-person mime done by Ben and Jacob. Below: the devil tries to choke the Christian with his tie (sounds wierd, but makes sense when you see the song):

The next song, Devil is Bad, is very fun and mimey. It's very similar to Sin Chair (another song we do) in that its primary purpose is just to entertain the audience, and it has little in the way of a moral message. (The chorus: You are the devil and the devil is bad / You are the devil and the devil is bad / You are the devil and you are bad!) It's all about humorous ways that the characters defeat the devil - for example, by pulling a bench out from under him and hitting him in the face with an apple. Below: Eve gives the devil a good beating while the other mimes look on.

Next was In the Light, a song that follows a girl's spiritual journey: from God-focused to world-focused to desparate to Christ-killer to redeemed to God-focused.

Below: Kaelie (main girl), 3rd from left in front row, doesn't fit in with those who "want to be in the light as You are in the light."

And finally... COURTROOM. A very intense song that asks "Where are you going - heaven or hell?" It always gets a huge round of applause in the really dramatic parts: when Jesus ("your defense attorney, who has never lost a case!") comes out to defend the Christian sentenced to hell, when he tells the Judge how he died and rose again, and when the Judge reads the book previously full of the Christian's sins and says, "The blood of Jesus must have worked... because there's absolutely nothing in this book."

Below: Satan tells the Judge, "This one deserves eternal judgement in HELL!"

Below: "And I know my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life!" (side note: this is a very good illustration of the enormity of our team! Look how HUGE it is!)

This is our team (sans 3-4 people who had already taken their makeup off):

Good night! We're leaving before dawn cracks tomorrow to spend a week skiing in Colorado, so I need to get to bed. No posts for a while... sorry. Hopefully this will tide you over... for a day or two. :)