The “freeze” craze started by our Frozen Grand Central mission has now reached 70 cities in 34 countries and 6 continents (come on Antarctica, get with the program!) Agent Piskvor from Prague made a very cool map showing the locations of all the freeze missions. It’s a Google Map, so you can interact with it and click through to see the video for each city.
A couple of recent freezes of note include the first freeze in the Middle East:
Beirut, Lebanon
…and a freeze in Hong Kong where legislators and councilors from the local government participated.
The IE Global group based in Prague turned a subway car into a living room this past weekend. Here’s their report and video:
- Mission: Travel first class … on the subway!
- When: April 4th, 2008, from 5pm onwards
- Where: Prague subway system (eastbound yellow line)
- Agents: 12
On Friday, April 4th, the commuters on one of the trains were rather surprised when a girl has boarded a train, carrying a rug, and spread it out on the floor. Imagine their shock at the next station, where two guys brought in a large armchair, on the following stations accompanied by a coatrack, table, antique telephone, slippers, and a flower in a vase.
This was just the set-up. At Jinonice, some six stations from the start, a dressed-up man came in, put his coat and umbrella at the rack, sat down in the armchair and made himself comfortable: he loosened his tie, removed his shoes and put on the slippers, picked up a magazine and started reading.
Several folks have emailed this story to us over the past couple of days. It seems a group of Libertarians in DC went to the Jefferson Memorial on Saturday night to celebrate Thomas Jefferson’s birthday by dancing silently with their iPods (similar to our Mp3 Experiments.) The event was broken up by DC police, and one of the participants was arrested and detained for several hours.
In the [first video] you can watch the group as they quietly danced around the memorial (which, to be clear, is open to the public 24 hours a day, according to its web site). A U.S. Park Police officer can then be seen approaching the dancers and telling them to leave.
The second video, posted below, shows the dancers arguing with Park Police officers about why they’re being asked to leave. They say they were quietly dancing with headphones on to celebrate Jefferson’s birthday, and that they weren’t breaking any laws (which, as far as we can tell, they indeed were not). Toward the end of the video, you can see Oberwetter, 28, being handcuffed and taken into custody.
For our latest mission, we turned a little league baseball game in Hermosa Beach, California into a major league event. Enjoy the video below and then go behind the scenes with our mission report and photos.
Improv Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 80 missions involving thousands of undercover agents. The group is based in New York City.
