Dance Critic Tobi Tobias Recalls Petit’s "Punishment” Walk
Man on Wire, the story of Philippe Petit's clandestine tightrope walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on August 7, 1974, has won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Dance critic and writer Tobi Tobias penned an essay about the film for Voice of Dance in September of 2008.
“By definition, having an obsession means you pursue it at all costs. “You don’t choose it,” as Martha Graham declared about dance. “It chooses you.” Philippe Petit, the French wire walker, funambulist, daredevil (call him what you will), in whom artistic and petty-crime tendencies are equally embedded, belongs to this small chosen breed.”
Tobias, a long-time resident of New York City, also witnessed the subsequent “punishment walk” Petit was ordered to perform for the children of New York City as compensation for his transgression of the towers. (Petit was arrested at the conclusion of his unauthorized walk and hauled before the District Attorney.) Her eyewitness account, Walking on Air, was originally published in the November 1974 issue of Dance magazine. It has been reprinted on her blog, Seeing Things, at ArtsJournal.
“We're here to witness a cruel and unusual punishment. Or is it entertainment? (I think of Nureyev saying, "We are paid for our fear.") Or is it art? The opening of the Delacorte Dance Festival, my assigned beat, has been postponed for an hour while Philippe Petit shows us how imaginatively justice can be served.”
To read her eyewitness account of Petit’s punishment walk, click here.
As for the puckish subject himself, Petit has hinted that his next exploit would include another high-wire walk in New York City, this time involving a library. He said the walk would be the first in a series around the country to promote literacy and inspire children to read.
