I've been arrested many times for illegal high wire walking and illegal street performing.
Wire-walking in performance is one thing - I never fell, of course. If I had, I wouldn't be here talking about it.
I was born in a world of opera, theatre, films, poetry, art, and therefore, out of the wire, I made a stage. That's why they call me a high wire artist.
I am fascinated by the engineering. The science of constructing and understanding why it stands. And I am drawn by the madness, the beauty, the theatricality, the poetry and soul of the wire. And you cannot be a wire-walker without mingling those two ways of seeing life.
Many people use the words 'death defying' or 'death wishing' when they talk about wire-walking. Many people have asked me: 'So do you have a death wish?' After doing a beautiful walk, I feel like punching them in the nose. It's indecent. I have a life wish.
It's very easy to walk on a wire if you spend a whole lifetime practicing for it.
I started walking a wire when I was 2 years old, and this has been a dream of mine to recreate this walk.
For me, when I am on the wire, I do not have a problem of eliminating or blocking fear. I do not really feel fear, although it is a fearful activity to walk in thin air, as I do without any safety device, but I am not fearful.
I am the poet of the high wire - I never do stunts; I do theatrical performances.
My time is always divided when I prepare for a wire walk. First I dream, technically and artistically, and then I go to work, and I am the master rigger, climbing trees and ladders and constructing. Only then I change my cap and become the performer.
I'm often very relaxed when I'm on the wire. There may be some tears because this is a dream of mine.
The thing that's interesting about wire walking is that we never get to see it other than looking up. It's like a circus thing. It's a guy on a wire.
We train very hard under windy conditions. I've actually walked a wire in my backyard with 90-mile-an-hour winds.
To do this walk, I believe it's around 2,000 feet, to go from the U.S. to Canada. I would train walking a wire almost 8,000 feet, to overtrain for this.
