Minute Waltz

Minute Waltz is a ballet performance recorded on a time-lapse VHS security surveillance recorder borrowed over a weekend from a local bank. Laurie dances in slow motion for twenty minutes to create the three-minute video, the recorder capturing two frames of video per second, thereby compressing “real” time (a conventional video recorder records and plays back at thirty frames per second). When the time-lapse video is played back, at 30 frames per second, her slowed movements appear to be “normal” speed. However, movements performed at normal speed during recording appear dramatically accelerated and frenetic, reminiscent of the comics of the silent era. The music is Chopin’s “Minute Waltz,” a nickname (from “Miniature”) the publisher gave the work, but Chopin never intended for his composition to be performed in a minute. If only time lapse video recorders had been available in 1847!