Victorian ceiling walkers (5 photos)

During the reign of Queen Victoria, people really wanted spectacles, but there were not many opportunities to provide them. Therefore, circus performers had to resort to all sorts of tricks to please the audience and make money.





The circus arts have spawned countless creative and innovative performers, from fire eaters and animal trainers to human cannonballs and hair-hanging uniques. But some of the most unique acts were the ceiling walkers. These people walked upside down on the ceiling like geckos.



Eme - human fly

The book “Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Sabotage” of 1897 describes just such a unique artist, known under the stage name Eme - the human fly. She began her performance sitting on the trapeze facing the audience, as any acrobat does. Then the girl leaned back and raised her legs up until they reached a seven-meter board suspended from the ceiling. Armed with pneumatic devices on the soles of her shoes, she attached her feet to the board and left the trapeze. Hanging her head and hair down, the artist took confident steps backwards on suction cups and walked the entire length of the board, then turned and walked back.

Eme was brave, but not crazy. The "human fly" protected itself with a safety net underneath, which it was rumored to require from time to time. At least another ceiling walker was not as careful as a newspaper article reported in 1883. His belt broke, and the walker who collapsed in Indianapolis fell from a height of seven meters and fell to his death.





Ricky Jay

Ricky Jay, an artist, writer and researcher of unusual phenomena, wrote about several walkers on the ceiling in his book “Jay's Journal of Anomalies.” One of them, Richard Sands, was nicknamed “the air walker of Drury Lane.” His boots stuck to the ceiling and he always used a net. Well, almost always. Jay quotes an 1861 article in which another performer describes Sands' death: “After walking on a marble slab at the circus, someone bet him that he could not repeat the trick. He made a bet and did it and broke his neck.” During his attempt, part of the plaster on the ceiling broke off.



Richard Sands

Shortly after this, in November 1862, information appeared about another walker named Olmar. Unlike Aimé and Sands, Almar did not have shoes equipped with suction cups. He placed his legs in rings suspended from a frame on the ceiling 27 meters above the ground.



These performances were very dangerous and required iron endurance, dexterity, stability and excellent physical fitness from the performers.

Olmar claimed to have spent eleven years learning this trick. And he said that the most difficult thing was “keeping the blood in my head” while hanging upside down. He did not know a single artist who could or wanted to repeat his feat.