Cork artist walking 55m steel tightrope to conquer her fears

"Tightrope walking forces you to hone in on one thing and focus. If you lose focus, you fall off,” Natasha Burke said. “The tightrope is such a simple metaphor for trying to stay upright in life.”

Natasha Bourke said tightrope walking is “a beautiful art form of balance”.

A Cork artist with a fear of heights will walk across a 55m steel tightrope suspended over Ireland’s fastest flowing river, the River Corrib, during the Galway Arts Festival.

Natasha Bourke said tightrope walking is “a beautiful art form of balance”.

"Tightrope walking forces you to hone in on one thing and focus. If you lose focus, you fall off,” she said. 

“The tightrope is such a simple metaphor for trying to stay upright in life.”

The highwire crossing over the River Corrib and Claddagh basin on July 16 is part of the Lifeline project with Galway Community Circus during the Galway Arts festival and aims to encourage people to overcome their fears.

Some 150 people from all over the world will walk the highwire, some who were completely new to the art of funambulism (tightrope walking) before enrolling in the event and taking part in training workshops.

Safety harnesses will be used to protect the public performers but professional funambulists will also perform.

'I really enjoy the poetics of it'

Walking the tightrope is all about psychology — and physics, Ms Bourke said.

In a recent training camp ahead of the Galway event, no crash mats were put on the concrete floor below the 2m highwire.

If the protective mats are there, people will allow themselves to fall, her instructors said. Lack of protection focuses the mind.

Ms Bourke said she has a fear of heights and sometimes suffers from Ménière’s disease, a condition of the inner ear that can cause vertigo.

She said that singing, whistling or chanting can help her take deep, measured breaths on the tightrope, and breath is crucial for stability.

“I try to take long strides with the breath and stay in contact with the wire under your feet,” she said.

“I’m pretty nervous about it. But I’ll try to find that meditative state and pace of walking. There’s so much to it. I really enjoy the poetics of it. 

"For me, tightrope walking is a meditation.”

Ms Bourke is also planning a large-scale tightrope walking performance and interdisciplinary art show, funding-dependent, in a swimming pool in Cork, which she hopes to show in next year’s Midsummer Festival.