Towering!! – Phillipe Petit – A Reminder of Magic

(The two exclamation points, Petit explains, are for him to walk between.)

Fifty years ago, 24 year old Philippe Petit traversed the two towers of The World Trade Center, 1350 feet above the ground on a ¾” steel wire with neither harness nor net. (He had already executed three astonishing Walks elsewhere.) This week, to benefit the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where he’s Artist in Residence, friends, fans and performers gathered to celebrate.

Though he’d seen (and saved) a rendering of the Trade Towers before they were built, it wasn’t until Petit visited, observing the edifice in progress, that the idée fixe took root. He and the Walk team traveled to map the plan multiple times. “When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk!” he says. They built an outdoor scale model in the French countryside and researched how to bypass security. Hundreds of pounds of necessary materials had to be transported from the street up 110 stories to rig the wire, all without being caught. Part of the team spent a night under tarps. A bow would shoot fishing line across the distance, followed by cable.

Philippe Petit (Photo by Victoria Dearing courtesy of the event)

“I don’t like to risk my life, so I prepare sometimes for months or sometimes for years. But sometimes after a Walk, I look at what I have done, and I have a little bit of fear coming to me, just looking at pictures.” he says.

The Walk began at 7:20 am from the South Tower. Petit wore buffalo–hide shoes and carried a 42 pound balancing bar. New York thrilled to his audacity, bravery, imagination and skill. “It was not a mere stunt,” but rather “a poetic dance in the sky that challenged our perceptions of fear, boundaries, and the limits of human potential,“ according to Judith Roze, Deputy Cultural Counselor, French Embassy in the U.S. The artist’s accomplishment is legendary.

Myths and legends have existed since the beginning of homo sapiens. Man is forever drawn to the incomprehensible in order to feel connected to the world in which we find ourselves, to believe that we can rise to exceptional/unprecedented experience, to honor those who do and perhaps become part of a miracle. Philippe Petit has always understood this.

As Paul Winter used to usher in The Solstice, Anat Cohen’s clarinet now echoes from four corners of the cathedral. Sound is haunting, resonant without echo. A brief candle procession and recorded excerpt of Jacques Brel performing “The Impossible Dream” follows. James Marsh’s 2008 documentary Man On Wire, combining historical footage with re-enactment, is projected. We see young Petit busking on his unicycle as well as readying for the event. 

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is a beating heart of thinking, arts and community outreach. This evening reflects inclusion: five young dancers, walk, skip, and twirl a red tape representing aerial artists of the future. Entering to the sounds of organ chords and sea gulls, Molly Lewis lyrically whistles, signaling dawn. Sophie Auster sings her own “Flying Machine,” whose lyrics are, alas, unintelligible. Vocal soars. (Mark Marshall accompanies on guitar.)

Petit’s voice emerges describing first steps onto the Trade Center wire. “All of a sudden the density of the air is no longer the same…I approach the edge…on one side the mass of the mountain; on the other, the universe.” The still lithe figure appears on a platform 20 feet above costumed in white. Proud and calm, looking straight across, he breathes thinner air as if invigorated, picks up the pole and embarks into atmosphere he thinks of as home. Evelyne Crochet interprets Erik Satie’s “Gymnopedie No. 1 on piano.

A beautifully configured bird puppet, wings spread, flies above and below the wire in apparent recognition. (Merlin Whitehawk is the puppeteer; puppet is by the masterful Ralph Lee.) Petit surveys his domain, then returns across. The balance pole lays against one shoulder as the freed hand seems to conduct music. St. John’s is silent and still. There’s not a cough, a program rustle or raised cell phone. Shawn Conley plays “Ma Mere Baidja” on double bass. (Francois Rabbath)

Musicians move onto a stage below. Sting soulfully sings “Fields of Gold” as the cathedral lights up section by section from the altar. (The artists have long been friends.) Petit steps back and forth on the wire. He lifts his feet high, swinging one to proceed the other, like slow motion dressage. Light grows hazy, dappled. The performer balances on his knees, sits, then lies on the wire, one leg dangling. Once vertical, hands gleefully rise above his head.

Sirens sound. In an enactment of that morning, vaudevillian clowns Tim Guinee and Lorenzo Pisoni play policemen trying fruitlessly to get Petit down before he feels ready. Just as he did then, the mischievous artist thumbs his nose, advancing and retreating, teasing his appointed rescuers. On terra firma, he quickly rids himself of handcuffs with a paperclip. The next scene is called Confession. (The evening is broken into 19 brief ‘scenes.’) Petit admits to embellishing his story and, much abashed, to not crediting Jean-Louis Blondeau without whom the walk never could’ve occurred. (Blondeau cries in the documentary.)

Sting performs the world premiere of “Let the Great World Spin,” its title from Colum McCann’s terrific novel which is not about the Walk, but features it as metaphor and central axis. “He didn’t defy gravity; he aligned himself with it, and in doing so allowed us to defy our own possible falling down,” wrote the author.

At last, Cohen plays from the upper balcony where Winter began his evenings. The cast assembles. Petit rides up the aisle on a unicycle, weathered cloth bag across his chest, squashed black hat on his head, just as he might’ve appeared at 20. Participants bow. No one wants to leave.

“Believe in the miracles that exist around you, inside others, in you. Go look for them. Feed your imagination. In this way, build your destiny.”  (Philippe Petit)

Towering!!
Conceived, written, and directed by Philippe Petit in creative collaboration with Judith Friedlender
Musicians with Sting: Jonathan Dinklage, Entcho Todorov, Hiroko Taguchi, Adele Stein, Shawn Conley, Robert Mathes.
Lighting Design by Melissa Mizell; Sound Design by Jason Grisell

Photos by Sean Zanni/PMC/PMC

The event benefits community programs of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112^th Street and the organization and preservation of the archives of Philippe Petit, for future generations of explorers of the impossible.                                                                                                

Philippe Petit has been artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine 42 years. He was granted the title to stop arrest after a high-wire walk across its 601 foot long nave. Petit regularly gives lectures and workshops internationally on a variety of subjects and has written eight books including Cheating the Impossible: Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist, an ebook for TED.

Films: 1994’s The Man on the Wire is a wonderful documentary of the walk. (Amazon Prime Video and Hulu)
2015’s The Walk, starring Joseph Gordon Leavitt, a biographical piece offering a more polished view. (Amazon Prime Video)
Book: To Reach the Clouds (2002) by Philippe Petit with James Signorelli is the most complete and authentic description.
There’s even a children’s book: The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordecai Gerstein.