Walking on the Walls

Physics! "Walking on Walls," by Trisha Brown, takes conventional performance and turns it on its side. Wall-walkers break the laws of gravity and the performance enables viewers to live vicariously through the crazy antics of the wall-walkers.

Live! Performers are thinking continuously with no time to stop and analyze. Don’t fall; hold on; walk straight. Zip. Zen. Zeta. Zero. Zoology? Do these thoughts process? The dancer’s heads are filled with flying notions and fears.

Zany! Knee deep in Nietzsche’s lies; God’s laws? Gravity? ... Show me gravity when I can see the ground out of my peripheral vision. Yeah, it seems a little crazy to be walking like insects , but does that matter? People stare at me, their faces demonic. I see all of their facial features in high contrast. The blacks, whites and grays in between, give this feeling. Just as you see me projected without color, I can see you right back. Life is a mirror. You look lost and confused; are you being pulled apart? The walls are white; the ceiling is grey and cold. I am wearing all black. What color is there to see even if you could?

Choose! Because tonight’s gonna be a good, good election; an election to choose the meaning of this performance. Why walls? What is wrong with walking on the ceiling? Cliché seems a bit strong. Who deems an act cliché?

Zap! The line snaps, I fall to the floor. But which way is up? Where would I fall to? The world confuses me – Confuses me like the dismembered man whose colorful head is glorified on a stem and put onto display for millions to judge. Physics call for laws, for rules… Sophie Tauber-Arp has no laws, has no rules. Tristan Tzara, in his Dada Manifesto of 1918, says: ...

Exposure! Let’s live it up with the foreign relations – let’s show our skills to millions. The walkers are barefoot; the walls slowly turn from crisp clean white to a dark musty black. Feet are never clean. Overzealous? The dancers enthused, excited, but are they scared? The wires keep them safe but yet are hidden from view by the 1971 camera restrictions. (What? Unaware that ‘years’ had restrictions? There are always restrictions, there are always limits.) No one can defy gravity, but where are the wires!

Zealous! Vertigo approaches quickly. My body is getting tired. We defy gravity but still fight against it. I am getting weak. I zigzag across the wall; Trisha Brown’s improvised canvas is being slowing painted with dirt as sure as the pendulum swings. The clock ticks life away.

Superior! They are walking sculptures. They are moving entertainment. They have defied gravity and rewrote physics. Are they better? They are cheaters, simply filling the void of a room with thoughtless actions and gestures. I can walk on walls. I can walk through walls. I am everything that is better. I am manipulation.