Artist:Sean M. Whelan and The Mime Set

After twice having The Mime Set perform at Babble, his monthly spoken word event, in 2004, Sean M. Whelan was invited to read his poetry during the band's residency at Melbourne's Builder's Arms Hotel in April 2005. An idea born of drunken mutual admiration, our first show 'Death To Your Dreams' started with the discovery of clear correspondences between Sean's surreal romantic poetry and the band's textured, emotional music. With a short deadline, we set to work, creating a complete show in four months for the 2005 Melbourne Fringe Festival. New music was improvised to existing poetry and new poetry was written to existing songs, notably in the piece 'Honey O' where Sean responded to an existing narrative of relationship breakdown, giving the piece the perspective of two voices responding to each other's bewilderment and sadness. These pieces became the show 'Death To Your Dreams'. Transcending poetic and musical genre, we have created a space where spoken word can rock with ...