Indeed, the performance was a literal high-wire act, with workers taking to the skies to run electrical cable from pole to pole a dozen, if not dozens of feet above the ground. Linemen walked up poles and rode buckets to their tops and ran cables underground, often with physical skill and derring-do more common to the circus. So it went with PowerUP, Forklift Danceworks' collaboration with Austin Energy, in which more than 50 employees of the city utility performed staged versions of their daily duties on a field near the Travis County Expo Center. Making our lives easier by ensuring that electricity flows steadily our way. But as he moved gingerly onto a crossbar, nothing beneath him but fathoms of air and hard earth, the man's recorded voice, casually describing the routineness of such ascents, yanked you back to the reality that, while he was making this climb as part of a show, it's what he does in the course of his everyday job – not for the glory or roar of the crowd but to fix problems. Watching Terril Watson climb, rung by rung by careful rung, the tower 100 feet tall, a spotlight on him, and Graham Reynolds' intense score sending your heart rate higher with every step, you could imagine yourself under the big top of old and Watson as one of those daredevils about to dive from an impossible height into a terrifyingly tiny tank of water. PowerUP Travis County Exposition Center, 7311 Decker Ln. PowerUp rehearsal (Photo by John Anderson)
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