Discipline – Tightrope Walking

Tightrope Walking for the circus nerd

Equilibristics is the art of balance. 

Several disciplines within the circus arts are based on maintaining an equilibrium, such as hand balancing on different supports such as canes, ladders, or stacked chairs: the Washington trapeze (a special heavier trapeze on which headstands or handstands are performed), the unicycle, and last but not least, funambulism, which may be the discipline most associated with equilibrium.

The oldest style of funambulism is the slackwire, and one could easily imagine that it was invented when someone thought to rig a rope between two trees. Another is the tightwire, a wire on which acrobatics, advanced step patterns and dance are performed. For this reason, it is often called» wire dancing ». Skywalk or high wire is a third style. The wire is stretched at a great height, and the act can be performed either on stage, in the ring, or as an (il)legal act outdoors, where the wire is fixed between rooftops, across ravines or anywhere imaginable. 

One world-famous skywalker is Philippe Petit, who in 1974 crossed a wire strung between the towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. Different styles of funambulism are often combined with other forms of equilibristics, such as riding a unicycle on the wire.