TORONTO – Walking over Niagara Falls on a two-inch think wire may seem crazy to some, but for Nik Wallenda, it’s in the blood.
Wallenda hails from a long line of dare devils and circus performers dating back hundreds of years, and will extend the family’s aerialist tradition with this latest exploit.
According to a biography of the family on the official Wallenda website, their ancestors were a travelling circus troupe in late 18th century Austria-Hungary.
The family became famous in subsequent generations for their flying trapeze act.
Nik’s grandfather Karl Wallenda was born in Germany in 1905 and became a circus performer at the ripe age of six.
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During the 1920s, Karl Wallenda gained local fame for stacking several chairs and doing a handstand on the top chair – not quite walking across Niagara Falls on the two-inch tightrope, but impressive nonetheless.
The Wallenda family gained notoriety during a 1928 performance in New York, where they were scheduled to perform a trapeze act. The net, usually underneath the wires to keep them from falling to their death, was misplaced.
Performing without the net, the crowd in New York gave them a standing ovation reportedly lasting 15 minutes.
According to the website, it wasn’t until the 1940s that the family became known as The Flying Wallendas. During a performance in Akron, Ohio, while performing their flying trapeze act, all four performers fell off the wire.
While uninjured, a reporter covering the event said they fell so gracefully it was as though they were flying. The headline in the Akron newspaper read, “The Flying Wallendas,” and the moniker has stuck.
But the Wallenda family history is not without tragedy. The modern patriarch of the Wallendas, Karl, died in 1978 while performing a stunt in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
According to the biography, several ropes were misconnected along the wire and casued Karl to fall to his death. The biography quotes him as saying “Life is being on the wire, everything else is just waiting.”
The family parted ways soon after the tragedy, but continued to perform separately.
In 1998, they reunited to recreate their crowning achievement, the seven-person pyramid, premiering the feat for the Hamid Circus Royale in Detroit at the site where Karl died.
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