Slack Rope Walking
The article about Dextre Tripp made me decide to do a piece on slack rope walking.
Slack rope walking or slacklining, is one of the many forms of rope walking that has existed for centuries. Rope walking came about as an offshoot of the balancing sports that were part of early athletic competitions (ie – balance beams). From the beams to the rope seemed to be a quick transition. The first ropes that were walked were tight ropes but soon it became necessary to increase the difficulty – slack rope walking was born. But why is this harder than walking a tight rope
The tight rope requires the performer to keep their center of balance over the rope. The slack line or rope does not have any tension except for that provided by the performer or props. This means that the rope is dynamic instead of stable. A dynamic stage means that the performer can use the rope as a trampoline. The performer has a much more free form environment to work in. The perfomer will find that besides that up and down movement of the rope it alos might move side-to-side. The performer then, is at considerable more risk due to the ever-changing environment of their unstable platform. A good slack rope artist is something to behold and you will find one at most Renaissance Festivals around the country. When you find one take note of everything that they do: juggling, tumbling, fire walking, unicycling, a little bit of everything.
One of the other interesting facts about slack rope walking is that it can happen almost anywhere. No need to crank down the rope to get tension. Find two fixed points, string up a rope and get to walking. You probably want to start out really close to the ground. I saw Jessie and James (Mutts Gone Wild) do this when they worked at the Lee Greenwood Theater in Sevierville, TN. One end of the rope was fixed through an ‘x’ shaped support post, the other end was fixed across the shoulders of 4-5 audience members. Great act!
-Bobaganush the pirate
