Show takes on risk-taking

The insane risks people take never cease to amaze. Take Capt. Joseph Kittinger, considered by some as the first human in space.

Back in 1958 jet aircraft were flying faster and higher into the stratosphere to avoid detection from countries they were spying on. The United States Air Force was concerned with a life-threatening descent flight crews would face if they ejected from a high-performance aircraft.

Kittinger, test director of Project Excelsior, put through its paces the newly designed Beaupre Multi-Stage Parachute, a system that would safely allow pilots to eject from high altitudes.

To test the parachute, Kittinger was dressed in a pressurized pilot’s suit and jumped three times from a balloon gondola. The daredevil’s highest jump was 102,800 feet, almost 20 miles above the Earth. It took him 13 minutes and 45 seconds to land safely in the New Mexico desert.

He set world records for the highest parachute jump and the fastest speed by a human falling through the atmosphere without a vehicle. His records have yet to be broken.

“It was jaw-dropping what he did. Not only did he survive, but he did it with duct tape,” says Eric Rose referring to a heat pack strapped to Kittinger’s back providing warmth in freezing temperatures of -70 degrees C.

Rose and David van Belle are co-artistic directors of Ghost River Theatre, a Calgary-based company that performs The Highest Step in the World, a multi-media extravaganza playing at the Arden Theatre on Jan. 27 and 28.

While Kittinger’s story is the heartbeat of this 75-minute production, the play also includes two other stories about flight. We meet Vesna Vulovic, a Serbian flight hostess, who holds the record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute, and a modern-day retelling of the Greek legend of Daedalus and Icarus.

“The underlying theme of these three stories is risk. Why do we take such risks in our lives? Not everyone jumps from space, but there are different risks in our lives – getting married, having children. Each and every one of us faces emotional, mental and physical risks and that’s what is compelling,” adds Rose, the production director.

While the high-action plot sucks you in, Ghost River Theatre shows are anything but traditional text-based theatre. Their creation method is to bring an idea to the table, amass a collective of artists in numerous disciplines, and together build a show from scratch in a laboratory environment.

Rose and van Belle, two self-admitted space nerds, were transfixed with Kittinger’s exploits. They brought in projection and sound designer Ben Chiasson, motion graphics designer Court Brinsmead and flying director Adrian Young to shape the production.

The result is a high-tech, multi-media hybrid between theatre and film that combines strong text, historical film, projections, animation and video transformations on the actor’s body to indicate character changes.

Playing five characters, van Belle spends much of his time strapped in harness flying through space.

“It’s very taxing. The first time I did it, I lost 12 lbs. I just sweat buckets,” says van Belle who has trained for a year on cardio and yoga.

“It’s active and adventurous. But there are moments of beautiful things such as when he sees the curvature of the Earth. You can’t help but be changed.”

A short trailer of The Highest Step in the World is available on YouTube.