The flying trapeze is a specific form of the trapeze in which a performer jumps from a platform with the trapeze so that gravity makes the trapeze swing.
The performance was invented in 1859, by a Frenchman named Jules Leotard who connected a bar to some ventilator cords above the swimming pool in his father's gymnasium in Toulouse, France. After practicing tricks above the pool, Leotard performed his act in the Cirque Napoleon (now known as the Cirque d'hiver). The traditional flier's costume, the leotard, is named after him.
Read more about Flying Trapeze: Trapeze Acts, Safety, Terminology, Tricks
Famous quotes containing the words flying trapeze and/or flying:
“The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1984)
“When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)