Flying Wallendas

By TOM SPALDING

and TRICIA HOPKINS


NEW YORK TIMES

SARASOTA, Fla. ‑ Mario Wallenda shook his head as seven loved ones practiced the same high‑wire trick that put him in a wheelchair 36 years ago.

“I think they're all crazy,” the 57‑year‑old said Thursday as the group rehearsed in north Sarasota. Wallenda was a member of the renown Flying Wallendas, a troupe of circus performers whose unique seven person pyramid across a tightrope dazzled audiences worldwide until February 1962

That's when the pyramid col­lapsed during a performance in Detroit. Two members were killed. Mario, the adopted son of family patriarch Karl Wallenda, was paralyzed.



Next week, a new group of Flying Wallendas is returning to Detroit with the hope of exorcising a circus demon. Thirteen people, all related by blood marriage or friendship to the 1962 Wallendas, will begin a 1‑night performance starting March 6 in the Moslem Shrine Circus.



They plan to perform the seven‑person pyramid.



Since the fatal pyramid performance, the Flying Wallendas performed the act only twice but never in Detroit, and not since 1977. Now, the pyramid will be a regular highlight of the Wallenda performances.



“I could sit here and talk them out of it until I'm blue in the face,” Mario Wallenda said. “Anticipation that something might happen? Yes. I'm running out of relatives.”



Family member Tino Wallenda‑Zoppe, one of the new performers, thought up the idea a year and a half ago and recruited or welcomed relatives and friends of the family.



The new troupe also includes 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.,



In the pyramid stunt four people line up single file at the end of one platform, standing on thin wire 25 feet above the ground. The four hold two bars across their shoulders.



Two people then stand on the bars, and a third person – in a, chair – gets on top. The group walks about 30 feet across the wire – without a net.



“We never use a net. MY great‑grandfather, Karl, believed it gave you a false sense of security,” said Lijana Wallenda, one of the family performers.



The Flying Wallendas have performed for audiences throughout most of this century. They debuted the pyramid in 1947. In 1978, Karl fell to his death from 120 feet above a Puerto Rico street. His death was the seventh Wallenda high-wire death of the century.





The Flying Wallendas perform the seven-person pyramid at a practice session in Sarasota, Fla., last week. The Wallendas plan to make the act a regular part of their performances for the first time since 1977.