But, unlike the ones that came before it, this act puts the audience - not the performer - at risk. As with the previous examples, this performance has been growing in its audacity over the past twenty-odd years. Now, in 2016, we’re watching a different kind of risky public performance. He died in 1926, as a result ion complications from a ruptured appendix, in Detroit.) (And, no, Houdini did not die on stage while performing this stunt. It would take about three minutes for Houdini to escape, holding his breath all the while. In this one, Houdini was locked at the feet in stocks, and then lower upside-down into a tank overflowing with water. Among his impressive repertoire of risky acts were straitjacket escapes while suspended by a rope from a building’s roof, handcuff escapes while submerged in a water-filled tank, and repeated escapes from the “water torture cell”. The most celebrated of this brand of performer was Harry Houdini. Petit did all of this over a span of 45 minutes. He even took a break to lay down on the wire. Well, actually, he walked back and forth between the twin towers.

In 1974, Philippe Petit performed “le coup”, in which he walked on a high-wire between the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center. But, as they say, the show must go on, and members of the Wallendas - women an men - are still performing their risky stunts today. Over the years, two other Wallendas fell to their deaths, and a third lost his life when he made contact with a live electrical wire with his metal rig. One of their most well-known performances, the seven-person chair pyramid, claimed the lives of two Wallendas and paralyzed another. When, after their safety net was lost in transit, they went ahead and did their act without it. Take, for example, the family of high-wire performers known as the Flying Wallendas who rose to fame in the 1920s. Over the years we’ve born witness to countless public performance where individuals have put themselves at grave risk as a means of making money, while enhancing their personal brand in the process.

Harry houdini straitjacket