Philippe Petit


Philippe Petit is a French high-wire artist who gained fame for his high-wire walk between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, 1971 as well as his high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, on the morning of 7 August 1974. For his unauthorized feat above the ground – which he referred to as "le coup" – he rigged a cable and used a custom-made long, balancing pole. He performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire.
Since then, Petit has lived in New York, where he has been artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, also a location of other aerial performances. He has done wire walking as part of official celebrations in New York, across the United States, and in France and other countries, as well as teaching workshops on the art. In 2008, Man on Wire, a documentary directed by James Marsh about Petit's walk between the towers, won numerous awards. He was also the subject of a children's book and an animated adaptation of it, released in 2005. The Walk, a movie based on Petit's walk, was released in September 2015, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Petit and directed by Robert Zemeckis.
He also became adept at equestrianism, juggling, fencing, carpentry, rock-climbing, and bullfighting. Spurning circuses and their formulaic performances, he created his street persona on the sidewalks of Paris. In the early 1970s, he visited New York City, where he frequently juggled and worked on a slackline in Washington Square Park.

Early life

Petit was born in Nemours, Seine-et-Marne, France; his father Edmond Petit was an author and an Army Pilot. At an early age, Petit discovered magic and juggling. He loved to climb, and at 16, he took his first steps on a tightrope wire. He told a reporter,
Within one year, I taught myself to do all the things you could do on a wire. I learned the backward somersault, the front somersault, the unicycle, the bicycle, the chair on the wire, jumping through hoops. But I thought, "What is the big deal here? It looks almost ugly." So I started to discard those tricks and to reinvent my art.

In June 1971, Petit secretly installed a cable between the two towers of Notre Dame de Paris. On the morning of 26 June 1971, he "juggled balls" and "pranced back and forth" as the crowd below applauded.

World Trade Center walk

Petit became known to New Yorkers in the early 1970s for his frequent tightrope-walking performances and magic shows in the city parks, especially Washington Square Park. Petit's most famous performance was in August 1974, conducted on a wire between the roofs of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, a quarter mile above the ground. The towers were still under construction and had not yet been fully occupied. He performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire, during which he walked, danced, lay down on the wire, and saluted watchers from a kneeling position. Office workers, construction crews and policemen cheered him on.

Planning

Petit conceived his "coup" when he was 18, when he first read about the proposed construction of the Twin Towers and saw drawings of the project in a magazine, which he read in 1968 while sitting at a dentist's office. Petit was seized by the idea of performing there, and began collecting articles on the Towers whenever he could.
What was called the "artistic crime of the century" took Petit six years of planning. During this period, he learned everything he could about the buildings and their construction. In the same period, he began to perform high-wire walking at other famous places. Rigging his wire secretly, he performed as a combination of circus act and public display. In 1971, he performed his first such walk between the towers of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, while priests were being ordained inside the building. In 1973, he walked a wire rigged between the two north pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, in Sydney, Australia.
In planning for the Twin Towers walk, Petit had to learn how to accommodate issues such as the swaying of the high towers due to wind, which was part of their design; effects of wind and weather on the wire at that height, how to rig a steel cable across the gap between the towers, and how to gain entry with his collaborators, first to scope out the conditions and lastly, to stage the project. They had to get heavy equipment to the rooftops. He traveled to New York on numerous occasions to make first-hand observations.
Since the towers were still under construction, Petit and one of his collaborators, New York-based photographer Jim Moore, rented a helicopter to take aerial photographs of the buildings. Jean-François and Jean-Louis helped him practice in a field in France, and accompanied him to take part in the final rigging of the project, as well as to photograph it. Francis Brunn, a German juggler, provided financial support for the proposed project and its planning.
Petit and his crew gained entry into the towers several times and hid in upper floors and on the roofs of the unfinished buildings in order to study security measures. They also analyzed the construction and identified places to anchor the wire and cavalletti. Using his own observations, drawings, and Moore's photographs, Petit constructed a scale model of the towers in order to design the needed rigging for the wire walk.
Working from the ID of an American who worked in the building, Petit made fake identification cards for himself and his collaborators to gain access to the buildings. Prior to this, Petit had carefully observed the clothes worn by construction workers and the kinds of tools they carried. He also took note of the clothing of office workers so that some of his collaborators could pose as white collar workers. He observed what time the workers arrived and left, so he could determine when he would have roof access.
As the target date of his "coup" approached, he claimed to be a journalist with Metropolis, a French architecture magazine, so that he could gain permission to interview the workers on the roof. The Port Authority allowed Petit to conduct the interviews, which he used as a pretext to make more observations.
On the night of Tuesday, 6 August 1974, Petit and his crew had a lucky break and got a ride in a freight elevator to the 110th floor with their equipment. They stored it 19 steps below the roof. In order to pass the cable across the void, Petit and his crew had settled on using a bow and arrow attached to a rope. They had to practice this many times to perfect their technique. They first shot across a fishing line, which was attached to larger ropes, and finally to the 450-pound steel cable. The team was delayed when the heavy cable sank too fast, and had to be pulled up manually for hours. Petit had already identified points at which to anchor two tiranti to other points to stabilize the cable and keep the swaying of the wire to a minimum.

Event

Shortly after 7 am local time, Petit stepped out on the wire and started to perform. He was above the ground. He performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire, during which he walked, danced, lay down on the wire, and knelt to salute watchers. Crowds gathered on the streets below. He said later that he could hear their murmuring and cheers.
When NYPD and PAPD officers learned of his stunt, they came up to the roofs of both buildings to try to persuade him to get off the wire. They threatened to pluck him off by helicopter. Petit got off when it started to rain.

Aftermath

There was extensive news coverage and public appreciation of Petit's high-wire walk; the district attorney dropped all formal charges of trespassing and other items relating to his walk. In exchange, Petit was required to give a free aerial show for children in Central Park. He performed on a high-wire walk in the park above Belvedere Lake.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey gave Petit a lifetime pass to the Twin Towers' Observation Deck. He autographed a steel beam close to the point where he began his walk.
Petit's high-wire walk is credited with bringing the Twin Towers much needed attention and even affection, as they initially had been unpopular. Critics such as historian Lewis Mumford had regarded them as ugly and utilitarian in design, and too large a development for the area. The Port Authority was having trouble renting out all of the office space.

Representation in other media

Petit's World Trade Center stunt was the subject of Sandi Sissel's 1984 half-hour documentary, High Wire, which featured music from Philip Glass's Glassworks.
Mordicai Gerstein wrote and illustrated a children's book, The Man Who Walked Between The Towers, which won a Caldecott Medal for his art. It was adapted and produced as an animated short film by the same title, directed by Michael Sporn and released in 2005, which won several awards.
The documentary film Man on Wire by UK director James Marsh is about Petit and his 1974 WTC performance. It won both the World Cinema Jury and Audience awards at the Sundance Film Festival 2008. It combines historical footage with re-enactment and has the spirit of a heist film. It won awards at the 2008 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina, and the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2009. On stage with Marsh to accept the Oscar award, Petit made a coin vanish in his hands while thanking the Academy "for believing in magic". He balanced the Oscar by its head on his chin to cheers from the audience.
Author Colum McCann fictionalized Petit's appearance above New York as a unifying thread throughout his 2009 novel Let the Great World Spin.
Petit's memoir was also adapted as a biographical drama entitled The Walk, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Petit.

Later life

Petit has made dozens of public high-wire performances in his career; in 1986 he re-enacted the crossing of the Niagara River by Blondin for an IMAX film. In 1989, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, mayor Jacques Chirac invited him to walk an inclined wire strung from the ground at the Place du Trocadéro to the second level of the Eiffel Tower, crossing the Seine.
Petit briefly headlined with the Ringling Brothers Circus, but preferred staging his own performances. During his stint with the circus and a practice walk, he suffered his only fall, from, breaking several ribs. He says he has never fallen during a performance. "If I had, I wouldn't be here talking about it."
Petit regularly gives lectures and workshops internationally on a variety of topics and subjects. He single-handedly built a barn in the Catskill Mountains using the methods and tools of 18th-century timber framers. He wrote his eighth book, A Square Peg. He has also created an ebook for TED Books, entitled Cheating the Impossible: Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist. Petit divides his time between New York City, where he is an artist in residence at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, and a hideaway in the Catskill Mountains.
Among those who have associated with some of his projects are such artists as: Mikhail Baryshnikov, Werner Herzog, Annie Leibovitz, Miloš Forman, Volker Schlöndorff, Twyla Tharp, Peter Beard, Marcel Marceau, Paul Auster, Paul Winter, Debra Winger, Robin Williams and Sting.
Director James Signorelli assisted with creation of the book To Reach the Clouds, about the Twin Towers walk. Petit not only wrote about his feat, and events that led to the performance, but also expressed his feelings following the September 11 attacks, during which the Twin Towers were destroyed. He wrote that on that morning, "My towers became our towers. I saw them collapse – hurling, crushing thousands of lives. Disbelief preceded sorrow for the obliteration of the buildings, perplexity descended before rage at the unbearable loss of life." Petit paid tribute to those who were killed and supported rebuilding the towers, promising that "When the towers again twin-tickle the clouds, I offer to walk again, to be the expression of the builders' collective voice. Together, we will rejoice in an aerial song of victory." A different complex of buildings has been developed on the site, and does not offer this opportunity.

Legacy and honors

Major high-wire performances

YearWalk LocationNotes
1971VallaurisVallauris, Alpes-Maritimes, Franceperformance for artist Pablo Picasso's 90th birthday
1971Notre Dame CathedralNotre Dame Cathedral
Paris, France		staged walk between towers without permission
1973Sydney Harbour BridgeSydney Harbour Bridge
Sydney, Australia		staged walk between towers without permission
1974World Trade CenterWorld Trade Center
New York City, New York, United States		staged walk between towers without permission
1974Central ParkCentral Park
New York City		Publicly authorized walk on inclined wire over Turtle Pond
1974Laon CathedralLaon Cathedral
Laon, France		performing on wire between the cathedral's two spires for an international television special
1975Louisiana SuperdomeLouisiana Superdome
New Orleans, Louisiana, United States		walk on wire across interior for the opening of the stadium
1982Cathedral of Saint John the DivineCathedral of Saint John the Divine
New York City, New York, United States		interior walk in height of nave to celebrate renewal of the cathedral's construction following a 40-year hiatus
1982Concert in the SkyDenver, Colorado, United Stateshigh-wire play directed and produced by Petit for the opening of the World Theatre Festival
1983SkysongPurchase, New York, United Stateshigh-wire play directed and produced by Petit for the opening of "Summerfare," the State University of New York Arts Festival
1983Centre Georges PompidouCentre Georges Pompidou
Paris, France
1984Corde Raide-Piano VolantParis, Francehigh-wire play directed and produced by Petit with pop-music singer-songwriter Jacques Higelin
1984Paris OperaParis Opera
Paris, France		high-wire improvisation with opera singer Margherita Zimmermann
1984Museum of the City of New YorkMuseum of the City of New York
New York City, New York, United States		high-wire performance for the opening of the museum's Daring New York exhibit
1986AscentCathedral of Saint John the Divine
New York City, New York, United States		concert for grand piano and high wire on an inclined cable above the nave of the cathedral
1986Lincoln CenterLincoln Center
New York City, New York, United States		high-wire performance for the reopening of the Statue of Liberty
1987Walking the Harp/A Bridge for PeaceJerusalem, Israelhigh-wire performance on an inclined cable linking the Jewish and Arab quarters for opening of Israel Festival under Jerusalemite Mayor Teddy Kollek
1987MoondancerPortland Center for the Performing Arts
Portland, Oregon, United States		high-wire opera for the opening of the center
1987Grand Central DancesGrand Central Terminal
New York City, New York, United States		high-wire choreography on wire set above the interior concourse of the terminal
1988House of the DeadParis, Francecreation of the role of the eagle in a production of From the House of the Dead, an opera by Leoš Janáček, directed by Volker Schlöndorff
1989Tour EiffelParis, Francespectacular walk – for an audience of 250,000 – on an inclined cable linking the Palais de Chaillot with the second story of the Eiffel Tower, commemorating the French Bicentennial and anniversary of the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen, under Parisian Mayor Jacques Chirac
1990American OvertureAmerican Center
Paris, France		high-wire play for the ground-breaking ceremony of the center
1990Tokyo WalkTokyo, JapanJapan's first high-wire performance, to celebrate the opening of the Plaza Mikado building in Tokyo's Akasaka district
1991ViennalewalkVienna, Austriahigh-wire performance evoking the history of cinema for the opening of the Vienna International Film Festival, directed by Werner Herzog
1992NamurNamur, Belgiuminclined walk to the Citadel of Vauban for a telethon benefiting children with leukemia
1992Farinet Funambule!Switzerlandhigh-wire walk portraying the 19th-century Robin Hood of the Alps culminated by harvesting the world's-smallest registered vineyard, to benefit abused children
1992The Monk's Secret LongingCathedral of Saint John the Divine
New York City, New York, United States		high-wire performance for the Regents' Dinner, at the centennial celebrations of the cathedral
1994Historischer HochseillaufFrankfurt, Germanyhistoric high-wire walk on an inclined cable to celebrate the city's 1,200th anniversary, viewed by 500,000 spectators and the subject of a live, nationally broadcast television special
1995Catenary CurveNew York City, New York, United Statesperformance during a conference on suspended structures, led by the architect Santiago Calatrava
1996ACTNew York City, New York, United Statesmedieval performance to celebrate the 25th anniversary of a New York City youth program
1996CrescendoCathedral of Saint John the Divine
New York City, New York, United States		theatrical, allegorical New Year's Eve performance on three different wires set in the nave of the cathedral as the farewell tribute to The Very Reverend James Parks Morton, Dean of the Cathedral, and his wife Pamela
1999Millennium Countdown WalkRose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History
New York City, New York, United States		Inauguration of the center
2002Arts on the High Wire 11 January 2002Hammerstein Ballroom
New York City, New York, United States		benefit performance for the New York Arts Recovery Fund on an inclined wire, with clown Bill Irwin and pianist Évelyne Crochet
2002Crystal PalaceJacob K. Javits Convention Center
New York City, New York, United States
2002Crossing BroadwayNew York City, New York, United Statesinclined walk, fourteen stories high, for the television talk show the Late Show with David Letterman

Filmography

In culture

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