In “Man Walking Down the Side of a Building” a person literally walks down the side of a building, using a harness. It is part “of Brown’s series of ‘Equipment Pieces’, which had initially used mountaineering equipment to construct hoists, pulleys and restraints to enable movement in unusual spaces, or in ways, which put the performers’ bodies at odds with gravity. In keeping with the relative simplicity of the equipment used, Brown also had the performer of this piece wear casual clothing and to perform to the ambient sounds surrounding the building, (…). Her intention was not to create a sense of theatricality but to draw attention to the simple and natural act of walking through a situation in an unnatural scenario.” Acatia Finbow, June 2016 for Tate Modern

“A natural activity under the stress of an unnatural setting. Gravity reneged. Vast scale. Clear order. You start at the top, walk straight down, stop at the bottom. All those soupy questions that arise in the process of selecting abstract movement according to the modern dance tradition — what, when, where, and how — are all solved in collaboration between choreographer and place. If you eliminate all those eccentric possibilities that the choreographic imagination can conjure and just have a person walk down an aisle, then you see the movement as the activity. The paradox of one action working against another is very interesting to me, and is illustrated by Man Walking Down the Side of a Building, where you have gravity working one way on the body and my intention to have a naturally walking person working in the other way.” – Trisha Brown, Trisha Brown: Dance and Art in Dialogue, 1961-2001, Teicher, Hendel

The piece was re-enacted a few times, including at Tate Modern in 2006, Walker Art Centre in 2007, The Whitney Museum of American Art in 2010, Fondation Cartier in 2016 and Hamburger Kunsthalle in 2024. A 16mm film transferred to high-definition video, black and white, silent, duration of 2:17 min, under the same name is part of the MoMa Collection, NY.