Comment on this story
Comment
Philippe Petit could be immortal. It’s the only explanation for how someone could step onto a cable strung between the two towers of the World Trade Center — a plunge of 1,350 feet — and not merely survive the walk, but transform it into a dance, an art.
That was in 1974. He was 24 years old then. He is 73 now and still doing it. But the plunge from the top of a 100-foot-long wire he strung across the great hall of the National Building Museum for a Thursday night performance was a mere 50 feet — still a potentially fatal height, but a far cry from the stunts of his youth.
Distance and height, then and now: None of these things matter in the breathtaking instant a man steps out onto a thin wire. That moment, the liminal space between solid and void, no matter the walker’s age, is magical — but perhaps especially so when the walker is a septuagenarian.
“Yes, I am fearless,” Petit said earlier this week in an interview with The Washington Post. “I’m not afraid of life. I’m not afraid of death.”
It was Petit’s first performance in Washington, above some 300 guests at a $300-a-plate dinner to benefit the museum’s upcoming exhibition, “Building Stories.” Attendees were hustled through their trout amandine entrees, because cater waiters stood ready to clear every piece of glassware and cutlery off the table once they were done, lest anyone accidentally clink a fork and cause a fatal distraction. The candles on each table were extinguished. Guests were required to remain seated.
And then Petit appeared on the ledge above, in a white coat with tails, taking a bow and grasping his balancing pole. To the tune of a guitarist and a clarinetist, he took a step, and then another. After a few more, you could feel the crowd collectively unclench.
Because he was having fun out there. On his first pass, when he got to the middle of the wire, he reached into his pocket and threw a handful of glitter. On another pass, he laid down on the wire and pretended to conduct the musicians, exclaiming “Yes!” when he popped back onto his feet. He was a one-man circus: A tightrope walker, and a clown.
“I surrender to the pleasure of being on the wire,” said Petit. “It’s, to me, the safest place on earth.”
But if the rush of wire walking is the specter of imminent death, what happens when that specter lurks in the far distance, beyond a chasm of weakness, arthritis, or cancer? When your body is your medium for making your art — and when you rely on that body to do extraordinary things — how does a wire walker cope with aging?
“My body’s becoming less supple, less strong, and all that, but my mind is becoming younger every day and my passion is not fading,” he said. He believes that age has only enhanced his art.
“When I was 18 years old, I was arrogant, rebellious, and I had [something] to prove to the world. Well, at [nearly] 74 years old, I don’t have to prove anything,” he said. “And at the same time, I am more in command of my art at my age than I was when I was an impetuous 18-year-old.”
Nevertheless: One of the event’s sponsors was AARP — which, of course, some still call by its former name, the American Association of Retired Persons.
It turns out, the man who has walked thousands of feet in the sky has always been interested in the city with a height limit. Originally, Petit had hoped to complete a walk across the National Mall, with the Smithsonian Castle as one of its endpoints. But years ago, when scouted it out, he saw a picture of the National Building Museum in a tourist brochure, and became interested in the space, which has 75-foot columns, among the largest in the world.
“I went in and it was closed. But that doesn’t stop me, you know. So I sneak in,” he said. “I was grabbed by the security people, and they did a very good job and they threw me out.”
But he later proposed the walk, and set about designing his rigging, which is held in place by a 660-pound steel beam on each side, and was approved by the building’s engineer.
There was no further subterfuge required, no weather to contend with, and plenty of time to set up, which theoretically made Thursday’s walk easier than some of his previous stunts. Theoretically.
“There is no easy walk,” he said. “Each time, it’s very demanding.”
Besides, it’s not necessarily about the height. Petit is not impressed by his peers who aim to establish and break world records.
“All that, to me, is totally uninteresting,” he said. “I am interested in the spirit of an art and what impact it has on other people.”
Though he once held a Guinness World Record (highest tightrope walk, broken in 2015 by Freddy Nock, who traversed a span of the Swiss alps), he despises the archive of esoteric achievements.
“Who cares if you juggle one more ball than your neighbor?” he said. “Juggling is not the number of balls in the air. Juggling is the presence of the magic of juggling.”
But one thing can break that magic spell. When Petit is on a wire, the one thing he does not want to see is a smartphone pointing up at him. Phones were not permitted during Thursday’s performance.
“I hate that. I think it’s a giant illness of our 21st or 22nd century — I don’t even know where we are, I am in the 18th century,” he said. “You don’t observe, you don’t smell, you don’t hear.”
When Petit is on the wire, he observes, but he does not think. He looks down — it’s a myth that looking down makes you lose your balance, he said — and also around his periphery. On the wire, Petit said, his senses are “tenfold more alive.” Though he isn’t thinking of anything, he feels pure happiness. It doesn’t always suit the performance, but, “Sometimes, I let myself smile.”
A part of aging is contemplating one’s legacy, and that is a complicated matter for Petit. One of his most beautiful performances will forever be linked with a tragedy that came 30 years later, one for which he was not present. Americans always ask him about his time on the twin towers — an illegal walk for which he was arrested, as documented in the 2008 Oscar winning film “Man on Wire.”
“Frankly, I’m very tired to talk” about the World Trade Center, he said. “It’s like going to Fellini and everybody talking to him about ‘8½.’ He had done 200 films, and some much better than ‘8½.’”
Aging also means accepting there are walks he will never be able to do. Like one he had always hoped to complete from the top of the Sydney Opera House across the harbor — “It would take millions and millions of dollars. I think it’s a dream that will remain a dream.”
A Grand Canyon walk he had been raising funds for in previous years has been scuttled, he said. After 14 years of study and preparation, “That walk was stolen by a stuntman,” who used “exactly the spot I was dreaming of. So it’s a very sour story.” (He’s referring to Nik Wallenda, the other famous name in wirewalking, who completed that walk in 2013.)
But Petit still dreams of other walks — one on Easter Island between the Moai statues, perhaps.
“One day when my body refuses to walk on the floor, I will not force it to try to walk on the wire,” he said, “But that day is not soon.”
Before he finished his walk on Thursday night, Petit paused for an unusually long time at the other side of the wire. He appeared to be adjusting something with his equipment. The tension in the crowd began to build. Was something wrong? Was it dangerous?
But a few moments later, he straightened back up and revealed his balancing pole, which was now affixed with several lit candles. The lights dimmed. He paused to let the dinner guests savor the beauty of the moment. Once more, he stepped back out into the void.
More stories from the Style section
View 3 more stories
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/03/24/philippe-petit-building-museum-high-wire-walk/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=wp_lifestyle