Online booking for our events is recommended

Tap Your Heels Together Three Times (2025) by Delaine Le Bas

The installation takes inspiration from the artist’s grandad’s original rosette, won at the London Harness Horse Parade and displayed as a component of the artwork alongside a photograph of her grandad and uncle with their trolly and horse.

Delaine Le Bas.

The piece also conceptually explores ideas surrounding the traditional trades of Totting and Rag and Bone in Romani communities and is a reference to the clothes that may have been collected in these trades, with certain items being very prized such as a good silk scarf to wear in winter, or a sturdy pair of shoes.

Rosettes made by the British artist Alex Michon acts as a contemporary and personal reference to Delaine’s nomination for the Turner Prize in 2024 and her connected thoughts surrounding who is chosen for prizes and who is excluded. There are many rosettes and they will cover the dress with lots of ribbon, this is explored in relation to personal and ethnic inclusion, exclusion, belonging and acceptance.

The centrepiece of the installation is a custom made dress in calico – one of Delaine’s signature fabrics with reference to her background in fashion and textiles and the historical Elizabethan text by Thomas Dekker – that will be worn as part of a connected performance piece titled Tap Your Heels Together Three Times performed twice at the gallery, during the opening and as part of Romani History Month in June 2026.

  • A person with long gray hair wearing a red outfit reads from large sheets of white paper covered in handwritten text.

    Delaine’s performance of Tap Your Heels Together Three Times at London Museum Docklands, 24 November 2025.

  • A woman in a red, elaborate costume stands in the center of a gallery, surrounded by a group of people observing her and reading papers attached to her outfit.

    Delaine’s performance of Tap Your Heels Together Three Times at London Museum Docklands, 24 November 2025.

  • A woman in a red costume with white writing stands in a gallery space, speaking to a group of people who are gathered around her.

    Delaine’s performance of Tap Your Heels Together Three Times at London Museum Docklands, 24 November 2025.

  • A woman in a red dress reads from large handwritten sheets to a small group of people indoors. Others listen attentively in the background.

    Delaine’s performance of Tap Your Heels Together Three Times at London Museum Docklands, 24 November 2025.

  • A woman in a red dress adorned with notes stands in the center of a group of people at an indoor event, while attendees look on and take photos.

    Delaine’s performance of Tap Your Heels Together Three Times at London Museum Docklands, 24 November 2025.

The significance of the title is related to ideas of home, gender, belonging and the thought that often for everyone in certain times the idea of being able to “Tap Your Heels Together Three Times” and be who you want to be unconditionally and where you would truly love to be is something many of us have in common...

Silk for our neck amongst the rags & bones
Shoes for our feet
The flat cart
Blue
Cresents of yellow and red
Flecks of white
The flick of the brush creating
Like his mane and tail
For flies.
While red, pleated with gold
Prize
Its steps
I trod
The roads
With metal shoes they travelled
The shoes I already had
They were always red
Like the rosette
I had already won
Always
Just by being alive
They had made their mistake
& I knew that the emerald of it all
Was not what it was
Never
The curtain was back
& truth speaks to power
Always
I clicked my heels
For I knew this horse of this colour
Was truly what it was
Always