Tightrope walking
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Tightrope walking is a spectacle activity usually performed for the amusement of an audience. It involves a performer who walks along a thin wire or rope usually from a great height. The "tightrope walker" may sometimes use a pole to aid in balancing while walking the rope. For heightened drama, the walker may perform the feat without the precaution of a safety net. A tightrope walking act is common for circuses.
Sometimes tightrope walking may be performed as a publicity stunt.
Styles of Tightrope acts
- Highwire
- Tightwire
- Slackwire
- Freestyle Slacklining (a.k.a “rodeo slacklining”) is the art and practice of cultivating balance on a piece of rope or webbing draped slack between two anchor points. Typically about 15 to 30 feet long and a couple feet off the ground in the center, this type of slackline provides a wide array of opportunities for both swinging and static maneuvers. A freestyle slackline has no tension in it, while both traditional slacklines and tightropes are tensioned. This slackness in the rope or webbing allows it to swing at large amplitudes and adds new dynamics to the ancient art of tightrope walking.
- Skywalk
- funambule (french)
Famous tightrope artists
- Blondin, a.k.a. Jean-François Gravelet, who wire-walked across Niagara Falls many times
- Phillippe Petit who walked between the towers of the former World Trade Center in New York City
- Jade Kindar-Martin and Didier Pasquette, highwire walkers, most notable for their world-record setting skywalk over the River Thames in London
- the Flying Wallendas, famous for their seven- and eight-person pyramid wire-walks