Worship on a Wire
NEW YORK — In the nave of the cathedral, on a cold steel wire, an artist offers up his life.
With just a long white pole to balance him, high-wire performer Philippe Petit brings a rare form of reverence to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine as he glides across the cable to the strains of Bach.
Kneeling, prancing, bowing, dancing, he tiptoes across his precarious stage with nothing but faith and skill to guide him.
And the knowledge that his daughter is buried far below.
Outside, the rumble of Manhattan seems a world away.
Inside, there is no safety net, just two “cavaletti,†anchor ropes on runners that stabilize the wire on either end. In 30 years of wire walking--including an illegal jaunt between the towers of the World Trade Center in New York in 1974 and others at Notre Dame in Paris and the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia--Petit has never used a protective device.
Instead, he puts his faith in his raw stubby feet, his buffalo-skin slippers (which he stitched himself), his 27-foot pole and his three-quarter-inch wire. The 47-year-old Paris-born acrobat says he needs nothing more.
“Why would a bird have a leash?†he asks incredulously, when asked about a net. “Would it still be a bird? A wire walker is only beautiful when walking in the sky.â€
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Petit’s performance, a work called “Crescendo,†takes place on New Year’s Eve and is actually done on three separate wires, the highest strung at 90 feet above the high altar. Earlier he practiced in one of the cathedral’s outlying buildings on a wire about 20 feet from the ground.
“Crescendo†is a tribute to his great friend and patron, the Very Rev. James Parks Morton, who has just retired as dean of St. John’s. Petit is the first to acknowledge the surreal nature of high-wire walking in such a sacred setting.
“A steel cable with a human being on it does not belong in a church,†he says. “But this is not a daredevil act. It is an act of poetry and art that reflects what a living cathedral should be.â€
The wire is his musical instrument, Petit says. He knows every nuance, every quiver.
“I rig the wire myself, which is why I’m still alive. For me, there is nothing that is more safe,†he says.
“And it makes me happy, up here in the sky.â€
But “Crescendo†is far more than another stroll in the sky for the man who has conquered cables from Tokyo to Paris, and who has already strung a wire across the Little Colorado River in the Grand Canyon in preparation for a future stroll.
It is a deeply personal work of love and worship, he says. The performance, which includes dance, mime, music and lighting, is an allegorical depiction of Morton’s life at the cathedral. It is both a tribute to the dean and to the haunting brownstone building that both men call their spiritual home.
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And it reflects Petit’s own journey, from his teen-age days as a wandering minstrel in Paris, juggling and performing magic tricks, to his role as artist-in-residence at the 104-year-old Episcopal cathedral in New York.
When construction resumed on the unfinished cathedral in 1982 after a 41-year break, it was Petit who carried the first stone on a wire across Amsterdam Avenue, delivering it into the grateful hands of Morton.
His studio is tucked into a cathedral gallery, high above the nave. The ashes of his 13-year-old daughter Cordia-Gypsy, who died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1992, are buried in the columbarium.
“My heart is here, my life is here,†he says simply. “It is my precious place.â€
And Morton’s. The largest cathedral in the world is a living testimony to the man who spent 25 years opening its doors to worshipers of any faith and to those with different social and artistic messages. There’s a poet’s corner above one altar, a huge fish tank in another, menorahs, Japanese vases, a sports tapestry, an AIDS memorial. Concerts and Halloween parties are now a regular part of the annual cathedral schedule.
So it was fitting that the high-wire walker who captivated the dean two decades ago should be invited to join this world.
The two are close. Morton buried Petit’s child and says he loves the performer like a son.
“Of course my heart is in my mouth every time I watch him perform,†says Morton, who watched the public performance with about 5,000 others.
“But I don’t view it as Philippe putting his life on the line for me. This is his art form. It is like a great opera . . . a deeply, deeply moving experience.â€
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