High-Wire Performance on the Montmartre Hill in Paris

Text and photos by Chen Chi-Hsiang. Creativity is the highest value of every culture. France’s ubiquitous creativity, which leads trends, brings the most charming resources for tourism to the City of Light, allowing Paris to continue ranking as the world’s most visited metropolis. Every summer, Paris offers its unique programs under sunny skies, providing dazzling spectacles (Paris’s annual summer carnivals include music, dance, theater, circus arts, etc.). Of course, the annual Paris beaches also add countless recreational activities for citizens who do not go on vacation.

Remember last year’s grand performance where the Paris Chamber Orchestra dialogued with a building? This year, the Paris Chamber Orchestra accompanies Tatiana-Mosio Bobgonga in a high-wire performance across the Montmartre hill. She is a master of this rare, highly skilled art form, performing without any safety harnesses. The one-time, previously unpublicized show on July 21 attracted thousands of Parisian spectators and pilgrims, filling the entire hill with crowds sitting and lying on the grassy slopes, looking up at the breathtaking aerial performance.

The performance took place in front of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, located on Paris’s highest hill, from which one can view the panoramic scenery of Paris. The Paris Chamber Orchestra played on this platform, while a steel wire stretched in a straight line from a lower platform at the base of the hill to the platform in front of the basilica, spanning nearly a hundred meters and reaching a height of thirty-five meters. Accompanied by the light rhythms and charming melodies of contemporary compositions by the orchestra, the high-wire artist, wearing a leather jacket and short leather shoes, began her crossing from the high platform at the bottom of the hill, holding a balancing pole. With no safety harnesses, she focused intently, taking light, careful steps forward, changing her body posture in time with the music’s melody and rhythm—bending, spreading her legs, doing somersaults, rotating left and right, hanging and moving along the wire, and upside-down leg spreads—displaying beautiful physical vocabulary. Every difficult pose was performed brilliantly. The audience fell silent, dumbfounded, holding their breath in tension; so absorbed were they in the high-wire act that they forgot the music existed. Unknowingly, she crossed overhead, strolling slowly toward the Sacré-Cœur, appearing like a nimble bird against the backdrop of the white church, until she reached the platform after forty minutes of performance. Suddenly, applause, cheers, and shouts of admiration shook the entire hill, bringing the event to a successful conclusion and marking the climax of Paris’s summer vacation.

When the Paris Chamber Orchestra’s music meets the high-wire performance above the clouds, the feeling is unimaginable. In fact, the audience’s eyes and hearts were captivated by the female high-wire artist. If asked later what repertoire the orchestra played, I could not tell you. It seemed as though the music had vanished and time ceased to exist. When subject and object merged into one, I only knew that I had entered a beautiful moment.