Forget the figure in the beret, with their palms pressed against an invisible wall. That’s the mime cliché, and it’s not what drew Toronto-trained actor Melanie Santos Cordero to one of the quietest and most rigorous corners of the New York City theatre scene.
“If French mime shows you the wall, American mime shows you what’s behind the wall, and pulls you into the story associated with it,” says Santos Cordero, who is now a core company member of The American Mime Theatre, the world’s oldest continuously operating mime company. Founded in 1952 by Paul J. Curtis, the company has spent 74 years developing a distinct technique rooted not in illusion, but in emotional truth. “Our job,” they explain, “is to make the audience care deeply about a story they shouldn’t care about.”
Making the journey
Santos Cordero’s path to Manhattan began in Ecuador, where government-sponsored theatre classes first sparked their love of performance. When their family emigrated to Toronto, it grew with education from the Toronto Film School and Second City. A movement class with a Polish instructor ignited something deeper: “As LatinX people, we are expected to know how to dance. That’s not me. But in theatre school, I realized the body can tell a more universal story.”
After training in Toronto, including a memorable turn in Blood Wedding under the direction of theatrical veteran Sue Miner at Pia Bouman Theatre, Santos Cordero took a big leap: they moved to New York City, hungry to connect with artists “working at a different level.” There, they found mentors in choreographer Christine Dakin and street dancer Afreda Sherry. And they stumbled into an audition that changed everything.
At American Mime Theatre, auditions are part test and part lesson. Candidates present prepared material, then receive a crash course in the company’s technique, and are asked to apply it on the spot. Santos Cordero passed, and soon found themselves reviving Music Box, a 1991 archival duet in which two toys inside a music box circle endlessly, reaching toward each other … but never quite connecting. The piece demands exquisite precision: every rotation, every extension of an arm, must be controlled down to the millimetre. “There is something about the rigour of American mime that I really enjoy,” they smile. “I am in awe of the amazingness of the human body!”
Under artistic director Janet Carafa, the company is currently preparing for its 75th anniversary in 2027, and a documentary on American Mime began filming late last month. And Santos Cordero is part of the team developing a new Christmas work for the company.
Finding footing
What has surprised Santos Cordero most about New York? The community. “The Toronto arts scene is very community-driven and smaller,” they explain. “I thought the size of New York would make it harder to connect.” Instead, the opposite has been true. They’ve learned not just to find community but “how to be in community” and “to make space for others to share their stories.”
Without a doubt, the hardest part has been “the pace and rhythm of life. Everyone is always in a rush—and everything is far away!” And given the offstage and on-stage demands for endurance, just how does a Canadian artist make it work in one of the world’s most expensive cities? Once again, the answer is community—specifically, the support of family, mentors, collaborators, and a network that keeps expanding. “I think about doing an Oscar speech one day,” Santos Cordero laughs. “I would get pushed off the stage. No speech could possibly be long enough to thank everyone!”
All that support has fuelled something special: “Being with all these people is giving me a different confidence in my artistry and creativity,” they explain, “and the knowledge that my experiences are something that shape my artistry… and are worth telling.”
Looking ahead
And those experiences are just beginning to find form in a solo piece that Santos Cordero is developing. It’s a hybrid mime-movement exploration of what it means to relocate. “This is something I believe is so universal: the experience of adapting to a new culture,” they explain. “I’m part of the LGBT community—so it’s especially acute. There’s something about that experience that I feel can be expressed especially well through movement, through the body—and people will see themselves in it.”
Pressed to think forward, beyond their own artistry, Santos Cordero first notes, “I believe whatever you learn you should share.” Then they point to production company 5CProductions, the collective which they started last year to create bold, empathetic work that amplifies underrepresented voices. It’s thriving, and it’s one step towards Santos Cordero’s larger dreams. These are to be a bridge facilitating routine cross-border collaboration between artistic collaborators in Toronto and New York—and living proof for Canadian artists that a career in the American arts scene is possible.
For now, after everything—the move, the training, and the building of a new life and new community a life in this new city which never, ever sleeps—one deep conviction sustains and energizes: “I have a lot of faith in the theatre.”
Connect with Santos Cordero on Instagram.
© Scott Sneddon, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
