Performance Artist Philippe Petit On Passion, Taking Risks and His Life On the Wire
"If you are like me and love what you're doing, you would never think of abandoning your joy."
Philippe Petit Announces TOWERING!! (50th Anniversary WTC High-Wire Walk)" width="682" height="580" data-caption='Philippe Petit announcing <em>TOWERING!!</em> at Three World Trade Center earlier this month. <span class="lazyload media-credit">Photo by Jared Siskin/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images</span>'>
The audacious French performance artist Philippe Petit probably isn’t as widely known as he ought to be. If the name rings a bell, it might be thanks to the 2015 based-on-a-true-story thriller The Walk starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But if you’re intimately familiar with his work, it’s likely because you saw 2008’s Oscar-winning documentary, Man On Wire, based on the 2002 book of the same name that told the story of his rule-breaking tightrope walk between the Twin Towers in 1974. Specifically on August 7, 1974.
Petit will mark the 50th anniversary of that daring feat, which is just one of his many unauthorized highwire performances, by walking the width of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights, Manhattan—just 20 feet in the air this time versus a quarter mile up. British pop singer Sting, Petit’s friend of 35 years, will debut a song he wrote for the artist at the two-day performance titled TOWERING!! (with two exclamation points; “You see in them the two towers,” Petit told Observer).
According to Petit, there will be nineteen scenes in Towering!!, including an arrest scene, “which will be almost comic, Keystone Kops, you know?” The artist, who turns 75 this year, still loves living life on the edge. Age hasn’t changed his approach to performance art, and he spoke to us about passion, his upcoming autobiography and refusing to grow old.
Observer: I see you as a performance artist more than anything.
Petit: Well, that’s what I am.
Right, but do you feel like you ever get miscategorized?
Absolutely. In this country, people are very quick to classify me as what I am not—people say I am a daredevil, a stuntman, a record breaker. All that I am not interested in. “Artist” is my title, and I write in the sky.
You held a press conference on the 80th floor of Three World Trade to announce your performance next month. What did it feel like to be back up among the skyscrapers where you began in 1974?
I was very excited, to tell you the truth. To have this gathering of friends and press and to vividly remember, in a little speech, all my work over 50 years ago and to actually do that on the 80th floor of Three World Trade Center with a magnificent view of the new tower and the footprint of the beloved towers… it was a great event.
Barbara Tober was there, right? A great philanthropist.
Yes, she was there and was very happy to be in the sky with me. I love her so much. Is she a good friend of yours? She’s a new friend, but yes, and she’s such a lively person, you know, a huge supporter of the arts and she’s wonderful. She’s like me. She refused to grow old.
In what ways do you feel that you refuse to grow old? Is it taking risks that’s healthy? Is it about being active?
Frankly, when I wake up, I have so many projects and passions to pursue. The day is not long enough, so I shrug my shoulders, and I start going with a priority. But I have no time to say, “Oh, I am old.” That’s what it is.
Do you feel like you will ever retire?
No, no, no… I don’t understand the notion of retiring unless you hate your job, then I urge you to retire. But if you are like me and love what you’re doing, you will never think of abandoning your passion and joy.
You live life on the edge. Do you think your performances are a metaphor for taking risks in life?
Yes, absolutely, but a more philosophical risk, a more artistic risk—more challenging yourself to invent and not to reproduce what you do in life, which is not that easy to do.
What’s your favorite building in New York right now?
I cannot answer that question. I’m not a candidate for a favorite color or a favorite dessert, so I usually counter with a list. But if I know that list of a few names, I will say first my home away from home, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, where I have been an artist in residence for more than 40 years. I’ve done 20 performances in and outside the church. Then I would also salute the Oculus, not only because Santiago Calatrava has been a great friend for many years but because it’s such a daring building. And I am in love with Brooklyn Bridge. I love New York and have done a lot of work on landmarks in New York City.
Let’s talk about the church. In photos of past performances, you had ribbons hanging from the ceiling.
It was a beautiful ribbon sculpture from Anne Patterson that was hanging in the church for many months. And the church asked me, could I play with it as an artist? And I said yes, so I crossed them. I was 20 feet high and with my balancing pole, I made the hanging ribbon come alive. People were quite taken with that. I must say it was technically difficult to have ribbon in your nose, in your ears, in your eyes, in your feet. But I managed, and it was a very unusual performance. I called it the “ribbon walk.”
Sting will be there for your upcoming performances. Can you tell me about that?
That’s the highlight of the evening. We will be surrounded by very talented actors, singers and musicians, and the show has many short scenes, most of which evoke my walk between the towers. It’s a show full of majesty, beautiful music, red lights, immense talent and a few surprises.
Sting wrote a song about you, which he will debut at the show. Have you heard it, or is that the surprise?
No, no, no, he didn’t surprise me. He sent it to me a few months ago and he even said, what do you think? And I said, well, I am very touched and it’s great. As the director of the performance, I asked him to put that song as the last one almost to close the show because the show begins, more or less, with my first crossing and it ends with my first crossing. Thanks to this new song by Sting, I think it’s going to be very powerful and very inspiring. I love that.
Can you tell me about your friendship with him: how it started and how it’s grown over the years?
I am not impressed by celebrities. I never ask for a selfie. I never ask for an autograph. That already puts me in a different category than the fans or groupies he’s used to. And I think that was a good way to start a friendship. It was 35 years ago, maybe 40, but my friendship with Sting started the moment I met him in Manhattan. I asked him to be part of an immense performance in Sydney, Australia and in less than five seconds, he said yes. And that was our first meeting. That giant show didn’t happen, but a few years later, I asked him if I could direct him in a musical and high-wire show near the place where he was born in the U.K. And again, without thinking, he said absolutely. I worked on the performance for a couple of years, and we even did a press conference together, but due to outside influences, it didn’t happen.
When I went to see Sting for the third time regarding another performance, I said to him, okay, it didn’t happen twice, but this one really should happen. And he said: Philippe, I love your vision. I am with you. Let’s do it. So, I think this is a result of many, many decades of friendship. We’ve seen each other all over the world. I was his guest in his house near Stonehenge, in his house near Florence, in his house in New York. We have been very like brothers. You know, we went to the cathedral many times. We played chess in my secret chess chamber above the nave, you know, where I have my archive and my offices. It’s a long relationship built of mutual respect. He is a very generous and profound man. And I think it’s going to be magnificent. I think it’s going to be the most beautiful show of my life.
How do you keep your balance?
You mean in my head or in my feet?
You know what, I think they’re connected.
You are absolutely right. I was going to volunteer that statement. How do I keep my balance? I am not playing with words when I say it’s because of my passion. And I think in life, if you’re passionate, then you force your body to follow whatever you want to do. It’s not the other way around. Even though I’m getting older, I actually think I am stronger on the wire. I keep my balance by waking up every morning and being so happy to practice on the wire, which I’m trying to do every day. And developing projects. At the moment, there is nothing else in my mind other than the finalization of this magnificent performance on August 7, the actual historic date, and again on August 8.
What kind of shoes do you wear when you perform?
When I practice on the wire, I like to start my hour-and-a-half session barefoot because that way I force my feet to feel the cable. It’s sometimes a bit painful, and if the cable in winter is very cold or in summer, very hot, you get cold, you get burned, but it’s a great lesson to start like that. But when I am performing, unless the choreography calls for a crossing barefoot, which I have done a few times, I usually wear little ballet slippers that I destroy and reconstruct because there is almost no one making a wire walking slipper. However, I did find an artist who does shoes near London, and now she exclusively does my slippers. In that sense, life is nice. But it is not the shoe that makes the wire walker. It is really daring, majestic and elegant, and again, I go back to the passion. I should be like a dancer when I appear on the wire, although I am not a dancer. I certainly feel like one. I must uplift people’s hearts when they look up from the ground. Automatically, something happens that you don’t even know of. You are being uplifted. You are being inspired. You look at the sky. Not many people these days are looking at the sky.
They’re all looking down on their phones, right?
Exactly.
Is that your goal as an artist—to inspire people?
It’s strange because, to be honest, I feel I have no goal. I practice because I want to do my next performance as well as possible. And I perform because, in a way, I have no choice. But yes, of course, one part of the joy of performing for me is to offer people a vision that I will imagine and I hope will inspire them. I know it works because most of my audience comes back to me after a performance, and they say my life has changed. I believe in the impossible. I was on the wire behind you. You inspired me. Which for a performer is really the highest compliment.
On that note, who has inspired you?
That’s a beautiful question. I just finished writing my autobiography and I’ll deal with publishing it after the show because right now, I don’t have one second free. But one chapter is dedicated to what or who inspired me in my life. I keep saying I am a self-taught performer, which is real. But at the same time, I had many influences that helped me develop my art. Some people, some artists, have become best friends. I’m inspired by Señor Wences, a ventriloquist that everybody knows, and Francis Brune, the greatest juggler in the world. But there are painters, novelists… people in different ways of life that really have inspired me. And that’s important. I will reveal that in my book soon.
Can I say the book is coming out next year?
If the gods are with me, it will be this year, but probably next year.
What advice do you have for young performance artists who look up to you and want to make a living from their work?
When I was a young person and a teenager developing my art, I hated when the adults were giving me advice—it was usually advice like be careful, have a net, this and that. I always spit on that, and I will never impose what I hated all my childhood, which is to receive advice. Now, there is a way to do it invisibly and subliminally and I call it opening doors. When I talk to young people and sometimes do lectures at universities, I don’t give advice. But I say if I were you, I would do this: explore through trial and error, make mistakes and don’t let anybody tell you that something is impossible.