John Fasile

And quickly, with just one light in a small classroom studio, while one of his friends filmed with a rented 8mm camera, they performed four of Gregory's pieces.

They did the acrobats.

Two acrobats are coming on stage.

Funny walk.

Slapstick ensues.

It's a comedy pantomime.

They did Black Square.

It's a symbol of society.

An abstract piece where the mimes move in lockstep to a piece of music that speeds up increasingly.

They did Jungle, where a woman cuts her way through the jungle and wrestles a snake.

They did Man in the Sea.

Why did it feel so important to film these?

They left just as quickly as they came.

And only a few weeks after that, Gregory left the Soviet Union through a loophole that granted some Jewish people passports to travel to Israel.

He never went to Israel.

He flew directly to Vienna, then New York City, where a refugee organization put him up in a rundown hotel.

And it was on Fifth Avenue in New York that he saw his first American mime.

From that moment on, Gregory has reinvented himself so many times.

At 88, he's an accomplished painter, art teacher, and a master sculptor.

You can see his piece, The Commuters, in Newark Penn Station.