Jul 4, 2006

Uncle Sam: Walking Larger-Than-Life

Walk culture has a patriotic face: stilt walking! It turns out that Uncle Sam is one of the most popular American stilt characters according to Lilli Siler.

A figure skater and dancer, Siler creates the giant-legged costumes and helps manage stilt walking appearances of spouse Cliff (pictured here), who’s a professional stuntman. As a stilt walker, Siler can dance, hop and jump rope on stilts, too. His long-distance stilt walking stats are the "Tie A Yellow Ribbon" 21-miler from Arlington to Grapevine Texas that he finished in 7 hours and a 58-mile “Go the Distance” trek across the Dallas/Ft. Worth metro area in 19.

Lilli explains how all the stilt walking started for them, “We were both working in a show at Branson about 8 years ago when the producers decided to put stilt walking in the act. Cliff told them ‘I can do that’ and the rest is history.” Siler taught himself to stilt walk by practicing 8 to 10 hours a day for about a week –an amazingly short amount of time. He quickly acquired a comfort level with the new center of gravity and sense of balance that stilt walking requires.

Now, in addition to walking on stilts to play a host of long-legged characters from basketball players to cowboys, Cliff trains other entertainers how to stilt walk for work at the gamut of special events. Unfortunately, there’s no professional association for stilt walkers but you can see more about Cliff's stilt walking performances at the promotional site.

Photo Credit: SilverLily Productions

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