FAMILY PICKS UP ON CIRCUS LEGACY TODAY IN DETROIT,

FAMILY PICKS UP ON CIRCUS LEGACY TODAY IN DETROIT, THE NEW WALLENDAS WILL PERFORM THE 7-PERSON PYRAMID ACT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 21 YEARS.
Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL) - Friday, March 6, 1998
Author: Tom Spalding STAFF WRITER
Shortly before other performers straddled horses or paraded costumed llamas into the circus ring Thursday, Tino Wallenda-Zoppe talked about the beast his own family has to tame.

Quiet reflection and concentration may normally be how the hours prior to a public performance are spent. But the Flying Wallendas , the famous high-wire specialists from Sarasota, found themselves fielding question after question from reporters.

For the first time in 21 years, the Wallendas today will perform the seven-person pyramid, a five-minute act that left two of the troupe dead and three injured during a performance Jan. 30, 1962.

It isn't just the feat; it's the same family, resurrecting the same act at the same location - the Michigan State Fair Coliseum - 25 feet above the ground without a net. The family has performed the stunt three times since the accident, but not in Detroit since 1962.

No wonder the cameras are rolling.

``I'll be watching and kind of holding my breath to make sure they survive,'' said Joseph Ritok, 80, a Detroit man who was an usher when the fall occurred 36 years ago.

It was a disaster detailed in the next day's newspapers, front-page news complete with pictures and banner headlines.

``When that pyramid collapsed, it was like slow motion,'' remembers Ritok, who as the usher helped break one performer's fall. ``A picture like that stays with you forever.''

He's still working with the circus, as a volunteer, and will be there to witness the pyramid again.

On Thursday, the smell of hot dogs and popcorn were in the air at the 90th Moslem Shrine Circus, where the crowd will be entertained by trapeze artists, strongmen and a Russian horse-riding act.

But the showstoppers will be the Wallendas , who will perform at least twice a day for the next 17 days for about 200,000 people.

``A repeat performance the world's been waiting for,'' reads a circus poster in the arena. If all goes well, the Wallendas will continue performing the pyramid on tour.

The Wallendas feel the undercurrent of tension but say they aren't fearful. They've graciously responded to the obvious questions like ``What are you trying to prove?'' and ``Are you nervous?'' They've relished the spotlight provided this week by - among others - ``Hard Copy,'' ``Inside Edition,'' ABC's ``Good Morning America'' and a Hollywood film crew making a documentary.

``I don't think we're here to prove anything to ourselves. We know we can do it. But to the world, we're here to make a statement,'' Wallenda-Zoppe said. ``We're here to re-establish our legacy in circus history.''
A deadly fall

The Wallendas will, as tradition dictates, walk above a concrete floor without a net.

They expect nothing to go wrong.

It was much the same Jan. 30, 1962. Wearing white satin with green spangles and led by family patriarch Karl Wallenda, the Flying Wallendas had built the pyramid and were moving in formation to the platform when Dieter Schepp, Karl Wallenda's nephew, who was on the bottom tier, reportedly lost his footing and fell, toppling the pyramid.

Schepp and Richard Faughnan, Karl Wallenda's son-in-law, were killed. Mario Wallenda, Karl's son, also fell to the sawdust- and straw-covered floor. He was paralyzed.

Gunther, Karl and Herman Wallenda grabbed the wire and Karl snared Jana Schepp - Dieter's sister, who had been sitting in a chair at the top of the pyramid - as she fell. Karl Wallenda held on to Schepp until people on the ground could find a net.

The crowd of 7,000 gasped in disbelief.

Dick Mayer, a Detroit resident and frequent visitor to Longboat Key, had gone to the circus that night with two of his children.

``It was horrifying to see. You knew up there, without the net, they'd be injured or killed,'' he said. ``I'm sure everybody there realized that.''

Alex Brown, 77, of Detroit said circus organizers ``were dumbfounded. They didn't know what to say. When they found out two were dead, it was worse.''

Circus clowns quickly ran onto the coliseum floor to try to keep the crowd calm.

In the midst of such tragedy, according to news accounts, Karl told his wife: ``I feel like a dead man on the ground. I can handle the grief better from up there. The wire is my life.''

So the Wallendas regrouped and performed the trick the next night. They did it again on two subsequent occasions, in 1963 in Texas and in 1977 in Sarasota, re-created primarily by Karl's grandchildren at Robarts Arena in Sarasota for the movie ``The Great Wallendas .''

At Robarts, after the last member of the pyramid made it to the safety of the platform, with 2,000 people watching in amazement, Karl Wallenda was asked if he had been nervous. He responded by displaying his noticeably damp palm.

He also said the act would never happen again.

But the new Wallendas - 13 family members, friends and loved ones of the original performers - got together 11/2 years ago to try again. The organizers of the Moslem Shrine Circus, celebrating a 90th anniversary, urged them to come back.

``Maybe some will think it's morbid, because we are celebrating the anniversary of their fall,'' said Bill Petrocy, the circus' director. ``In fact, we are celebrating a totally new act by the grandchildren.''

The new Wallendas acted no differently Thursday than they have in the months of practice leading up to the first performances, at noon and 7 p.m. today at the arena near Interstate 75.

``You can't go up there with the mind-set, `They fell; well, are we going to fall?' '' said Nikolas Wallenda-Troffer, 19, one of the Wallendas performing today. ``If I wasn't 100 percent confident, I wouldn't go up there. I have no doubt that we're going to conquer, that we're going to make it through the 17 days.''
`Great' before they were ` flying '

The Wallenda name is the stuff of circus history.

Family patriarch Karl Wallenda, born in Germany in 1905, was performing in the family circus show at 6 and doing stunts at beer halls by age 11. In 1922, he recruited his brother Herman, a teen-age girl named Helen - who later became his wife - and Josef Geiger, an aerialist, into the act.

They toured Europe for several years, featuring an amazing four-person, three-level pyramid.

In that pyramid, Karl precariously balanced on a chair on top of a bar between the shoulders of two men on bicycles on a wire 50 feet in the air while Helen stood on Karl's shoulders. The act was such a sensation that when John Ringling saw them performing in Cuba, he immediately contracted them to appear with the ``Greatest Show on Earth.''

The Great Wallendas debuted their act without a net - it had been misplaced in shipping - at Madison Square Garden in 1928.

The Great Wallendas were headliners with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus much of the 1930s and 1940s. One performance, in Akron, Ohio, the wire slipped. All four fell to the ground but were unhurt.

A reporter wrote that they seemed to be flying so the headline read: ``The Flying Wallendas .''

In 1947, Karl began a circus of his own. At the Wallendas ' Sarasota home that winter, he created the crowning achievement - the seven-person pyramid that became a staple until 1962.

It's essentially the same formula the 1998 troupe will use.

Four men stand on a taut cable tethered to vertical platforms 44 feet apart. On the cable, the two pairs are yoked together by shoulder bars. On top of the bars, on the second level, stand two more performers, again yoked together with a shoulder bar. At the top of the pyramid, sits a person in a chair who stands briefly.

The group walks once across the wire. The top of the pyramid, the lightest person of the group, is 40 feet from the ground.

Then, if all goes as planned, applause.
Flying Wallendas today

Karl Wallenda is no longer around. He fell 120 feet to his death in 1978 at the age of 73 during a promotional wire walk in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

His descendants, the sixth and seventh generations, kept a legacy alive by learning the daunting high-wire.

The current Flying Wallendas include: Tino Wallenda-Zoppe, Terry Troffer, Nikolas Wallenda-Troffer, Sacha Pavlata, Alida Wallenda, Tony Hernandez, Delilah Wallenda, Lijana Wallenda, Rietta Wallenda, Aurelia Wallenda-Zoppe, Dieter Galumbo, Andrea Wallenda-Zoppe, and Alex Wallenda-Zoppe, who at 9 is the youngest in the act.

``I've given them a few tips,'' said Mario Wallenda, 57, in a wheelchair as a result of the 1962 fall. Mario called them ``crazy,'' but he understands their passion to perform.

The director of Florida State University's Flying High Circus, Richard Brinson, calls the pyramid ``an awesome trick, absolutely incredible, probably one of the most difficult of all circus tricks throughout history.''

Sarasota Sailor Circus high-wire trainer Charlie Hartery notes that with four high-wire walkers on the cable, trying to keep balance while bearing the weight of three people, ``it is fairly dangerous.''

That's why national media are here.

The Wallendas , performer Alida Wallenda said, have motivation beyond showing the world that ``our family just didn't quit after the fall.''

``We want to leave Detroit with triumph rather than tragedy.''
Caption: PHOTO 2 DRAWING 3 (C)
The Flying Wallendas polish their Grand Pyramid act with a dress rehearsal Thursday at the Michigan State Fairgrounds in Detroit. Two family members died and three were injured during a performance of the stunt in the same arena in 1962. AP PHOTO The Jan. 30, 1962, tragedy was detailed in the next day's papers.
Though there are 13 members of the Flying Wallendas , seven will perform in the first show today. Tino Wallenda-Zoppe (7), Terry Troffer (4), Nikolas Wallenda-Troffer (5), Sacha Pavlatta (6), Alida Wallenda (2), Tony Hernandez (3), and either Deliah Wallenda or Lijana Wallenda (1). How It's Done Working without a safety net or safety ropes, four performers begin to walk straight on a taut cable smaller in width than their shoes; the lowest performers stand some 25 feet from a concrete floor, with the top performer (1) in a chair about 40 feet in the air It's toughest on the first row; performers not only have to keep their balance and move in sync, but also hold the weight of three people. The first performer (4) leaves the elevated post yoked with performer (5), walking out with performer (2) standing on a bar at the second level. The remaining four performers line up on the platform and walk out almost simultaneously to complete the pyramid. STAFF GRAPHIC/LIMBERT FABIAN