The Wheel Woman

The Wheel Woman,” an interactive performance at the National Museum of American History (nmah) captures visitors' attention and illuminates the gendered history of the bicycle. Although space limitations hamper the actor's ability to connect to museum exhibitions as was originally planned, the performer engages audiences with ease. Accessible and funny, the program plays to varied visitor comfort levels and uses personal conversations to help visitors connect their lives to history. The costumed program, offered regularly throughout the year, is a model of successful museum theater and demonstrates the possibilities of collaboration between performance and historical interpretation. The performance succeeds in large part because of the work of the skilled actor Julia Garner, who is committed to its historical content. During the program she rides an original 1898 Gendron Wheel Company bicycle around the ground floor of the museum's west wing. She wears a period-appropriate costume: a white blouse, long maroon skirt, and boater hat accessorized with a League of American Wheelmen pin. When visitors stare or approach, Garner stops the bicycle to converse. If appropriate, she blows her safety whistle and demonstrates the features of the bicycle and its adaptations for female riders. From the bicycle's basket, she shows off other objects, including a stereograph camera and its resulting images

Aesthetics · Art · Converse · Exhibition · Interpretation (philosophy · League · Performing arts · Period (music · Visitor pattern · Visual arts · White (mutation · Computer Science · Diversity and Impact of Dance · History · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Theatre and Performance Studies