Stilted/ Catherine Walpole/ BAC/ Spring 2007

Catherine dances for 13 hours on stilts. The building - BAC - is open for 13 hours. So that while the building is open Catherine is dancing. In fact Catherine started dancing before the building was open and continued to dance after the building closed, so that all those who came and went over the course of the day (no matter how long they were there)had a sense of Catherine dancing forever. A laptop connected to a video projector was counting the seconds, minutes and hours and blowing up the figures on the on the walls of the cafe – made this explicit. It was important the hours were projected in the cafe - a social space, separate and away from where Catherine was. In the cafe was a collection of CDs, some belonging to her, some belonging to her friends, some donated by members of staff - hundreds of them. There was a CD player in the café - it was connected to speakers in the foyer space where Catherine danced. You were invited to select a song for Catherine to dance to. When you had chosen a song you received a sticker. All those who had chosen songs over the course of the day wore a sticker - this generated conversation along the lines of "What song did you choose?", "Who’s that song by?"... Word of the mouth about the piece spread, conversation about the work was initiated. The music from the speakers in the foyer spilled over into the cafe so that although Catherine was separate, away from the social space that - we all became part of the same aural landscape. Her friend manned the CD player, you couldn’t state which song you wanted and then go. You couldn’t write down the song you wanted, or leave a note and come back later - you had to make the request in person - the song being requested had to be the next song played. Songs could be repeated.

Catherine wore a beautiful pale pink vintage dress. She herself is very slight and delicate, petit. Catherine tried to dance in the style of the music being played. She would waltz to waltzes, twist to 50s jive songs, stomp to 70s rock and roll and so on. She tries to disappear stylistically into the song. Being on stilts made her much taller than everyone (and the attempt to disappear doomed to fail). Even if you wanted to dance with Catherine it would have been awkward - although we tried. She had made herself difficult to interact with - or made explicit the difficulty she personally confessed to having in social situations. She was literally stilted. You could talk to Catherine. There wasn’t a rope around her, she didn’t want there to be, you could ask her what kind of music she felt like dancing to - a slow song? a fast song? She would converse with you, if you stretched your hand toward her, she would reciprocate. She would smile back, joke, laugh - share her thoughts. She danced on a mosaic of bees in a corner of the foyer beneath an arch next to the central staircase that greets you on entering the building. To be eye level with Catherine you needed to walk halfway up the steps. Behind her was a shelf - it had all that she might need for that day, bottles of water, snacks, glucose energy sweets, sandwiches, fruit, chocolate, painkillers, Tampons, cans of coke - as things were consumed the packaging was left on the shelf - the rubbish grew as these things were used or eaten.

Also changing is Catherine's body, the muscles getting increasingly tired, the wear and tear that the physical effort demands… And Catherine's mood: depending on the song, the time of day, who's come by to watch her to cheer her and who hasn’t. Also changing are the stilts themselves, at one point the rubber on the stilts wears away completely, so she needs to sit on the shelf - the same she has lined her fruit upon, so Greg (BAC's production manager) can replace the rubber, so she has less chance of slipping. It seems like a gentle act, like a vet with a sickly animal, being treated, stitched, plastered or patched up.The longer you watch Catherine the more likely you are to experience that drift away from the spectacle of the act to the symbolism behind it and at this point that you might begin to cry as so many others did. Recalling being too shy to dance with someone, too awkward, too different, too strange to commune with the crowd. To balance on the stilts is to be in constant motion, and therefore unsettled - the stilts become a physical device to demonstrate a psychological and emotional state... [You can easily topple on stilts can be read 'I can easily be toppled' 'I am vulnerable'.]

To watch a woman dancing in a public space to a tune you might have chosen alludes to a lapdance. You are the punter. By choosing the song to which she dances like a bear in a cage, do you become her keeper, her tormentor? All the while your role shifts, now what is happening to make you feel protective of her?Towards the end of the 13hrs those still left in the building gathered round Catherine to cheer her on, to egg her on to give support. Someone selected ‘Lady Marmalade’(!), a chorus of women danced with her and for her, her name was shouted someone gave her flowers. You could tell she was in pain, great pain. Slowly becoming incoherent, dropping words, getting tearful, the stress of the situation catching up with her. Eventually her boyfriend turned up – you could see her relief- he became a fixed point to which she could return her gaze and anchor herself. Eventually it was time to close the building – first everyone had to be cleared out except staff, when the doors were finally closed Catherine came down from her stilts – she couldn’t do this on her own. She staggered towards a sofa in the café, three of us lay her down. Her legs, feet and back were sore and tender. She was weary of anyone touching her as she ached all over. Time had made itself present on her body. Catherine was disorientated, incoherent, not speaking in sentences, when we unstrapped her from her stilts she half stood to walk but couldn’t. She was half-speaking, half crying. When she was eventually whisked away in a cab, and I returned to the archway where she has spent the last 13 hours - there remained the things she had hurriedly left behind: the crumpled cartons of the things she had drunk, a half-eaten bar of chocolate, some unopened packs of glucose energy sweets and the bananas - yellow at the start of the day now turned browny-black.