Korean tightrope walking.
Korean tightrope walking.
A tightrope walk, Armenian manuscript, 1688
Maria Spelterini crosses Niagara Falls on July 4, 1876 .
Riding around the rope is the most common kind of circus balancing act . Equilibrists can cross waterfalls and abysses on a rope ( Charles Blonden became famous for this in the 19th century), or they can ride a rope on a bicycle , sometimes for very considerable distances (the world record belongs to an American named Nick Wallena ).
Varieties
- Stretched rope , tightly stretched cable , usually about 1 cm in diameter . Often used additional items to find balance (umbrella, fan, pole, etc.). As a rule, performances on a tightrope include acrobatics or juggling .
- A high rope , the same thing, only the cable is stretched at a height of more than five meters. A kind of “heavenly walk”, when a long cable is pulled between high-rise buildings, rocky peaks, etc. Often, the passage is used as a promotion for the upcoming performance of the circus.
- Loose wire , usually thin wire or rope (3-6 mm), stretched freely. The difference from a tightened rope is that instead of holding the center of gravity of the body over the rope, here the artist should kick the free wire under his center of gravity.
- Walking on a tape ( slackline ), instead of a rope a loosely stretched sling of 2.5-6 cm is used, along which one often walks barefoot. The world record for passing is 1242 m in length. A frequent part of climbing workouts.
- The pole-balancer must be at least 6 meters long.
Famous tightrope walkers
- Fedor Fedorovich Molodtsov
- Jean-Francois Blondin
- Philip Petit
- Nick Wallenland
See also
- World tightrope walkers championship