To prepare for his high wire walks around the globe—more than 80 of them so far—Philippe Petit has practiced almost daily for the last 55 years. His most notable adventure was his illegal walk between the Twin Towers, a caper recounted in his book To Reach the Clouds, on which the 2009 Academy Award-winning documentary Man on Wire was based. Petit’s latest show, Open Practice, beautifully shot at the majestic Ulster Performing Arts Center, gives audiences front row seats to observe Petit’s creative process and inventive moves on the wire. Interspersed with anecdotes about his life, he reveals some of the extraordinary ways he thinks about creativity and risk and what he calls cheating the impossible.
Philippe Petit
On August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit walked a high wire he had secretly rigged between the rooftops of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.