Trisha Brown: Walking on the Wall (1971)

5th Annual Performance Festival PERFORM!

Venue: Neue Nationalgalerie terrace
Walking on the Wall is one of the best-known and most influential works by American choreographer and conceptual artist Trisha Brown. Premiered at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1971, it is considered one of Brown’s most significant works. In a simple yet radical gesture, Brown had an ensemble of seven dancers walk along the museum wall using ropes and harnesses, challenging the apparent laws of nature governing the performing arts. While the virtuosic defiance of vertical gravity often represents a visual climax in classical ballet, Brown changed the rules by rotating the forces of gravity, raising questions about the conventions governing movement and the point at which movement becomes dance or performance. At the Neue Nationalgalerie, Walking on the Wall takes on new layers of meaning in dialogue with Mies van der Rohe’s glass façade.
Trisha Brown (1936–2017) was one of the most influential choreographers of her generation. As a co-founder of the Judson Dance Theater, she contributed to a wave of interdisciplinary creativity that shaped New York in the 1960s. Over the course of her career, Brown created more than 100 choreographies and six operas. Her Equipment Pieces, including Man Walking Down the Side of a Building (1970), radically expanded the concept of dance through an exploration of gravity and everyday space.
PERFORM! is curated by Klaus Biesenbach, Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, together with Lisa Botti, Curator at Neue Nationalgalerie, and Gregor Quack, Volkswagen Group Curator.
The American Academy in Berlin is a partner of PERFORM! 2026.

Next date:

• Date Wednesday, 09/September/2026 17:00 bis 17:30
• Venue Neue Nationalgalerie
• Address Potsdamer Straße 50, 10785 Berlin-Tiergarten