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Philippe Petit
Author, “Creativity: The Perfect Crime”
Philippe Petit has performed on the high wire more than eighty times around the world. He is famous for his 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Petit is also a magician, street juggler, visual artist, builder, lecturer, and writer. He is the author and illustrator of several books, including To Reach the Clouds, the basis of the 2009 Academy Award–winning documentary Man on Wire.
Petit's latest book is titled Creativity: The Perfect Crimes. His World Trade Center act is the subject of the 2015 biographical film The Walk directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
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2 min
Tightrope artist Philippe Petit explains the importance of teaching kids the power of intuition.
Confessions of an Outlaw: A Creativity Workshop, with Philippe Petit High-wire artist Philippe Petit, who four decades ago performed illegally between the World Trade Center towers, explains how his personal […]
2 min
As a high-wire artist, Philippe Petit doesn't have much room for mistakes. Still, he finds that mistakes are our best teachers and advises friends and students to treat them as such.
2 min
Intuition and improvisation are not opposites. They are cousins. One must take an intellectual approach to an adventurous exploration of the unknown.
3 min
High-wire artist Philippe Petit wasn't just born with superior balance; it's something he's developed all his life and something he applies to all his life.
2 min
A marriage of discipline and play seems contradictory, but Philippe Petit thrives on being an extreme and contradictory artist.
3 min
Philippe Petit calls himself something of a Luddite. We live in a world in which we are slaves to our gadgets. His brand of art calls for a level of focus not possible when tethered to a device.