Tightrope Walker Crosses Slag Heaps in France Without a Safety Line — She Once Conquered Prague Above the Vltava

In the French town of Loos-en-Gohelle, tightrope walker Tatiana Bongonga crossed a wire strung between two towering slag heaps — man-made hills left behind by Mine 11/19, now part of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed mining basin of Nord-Pas-de-Calais.

Bongonga performed without a safety harness of her own, though the cable itself was held and stabilised from the ground by volunteers using additional guy ropes. Their involvement was central to the whole idea of the performance. "We want to show that great things can be achieved, but never alone," Bongonga explained afterwards.

A song that gave her chills

One of the most powerful moments for her came with "Les Corons" by Pierre Bachelet, a song deeply tied to the mining heritage of northern France. "I had goosebumps. I felt the emotion, and seeing this landscape filled with people made me so happy," she admitted. After completing the crossing, she raised a miner's lamp above her head and sang "Les Corons" together with the crowd below.

For 65-year-old Rose-Marie Bloquet, the daughter of a miner, the performance carried deep personal meaning. "My heart was pounding the whole time. It means so much to me, and to the whole region. People often dismiss the north of France as grey and full of 'Ch'tis'. But it's people from right here who managed to bring together something like this, with a world-famous artist who brought us all to tears," she said. "Ch'ti" is a colloquial term for people from northern France, also referring to the region's distinctive dialect.

Bloquet watched the performance through binoculars. "I was crying. I watched her do the splits and other tricks, and kept repeating to myself, 'Please, just don't fall.' It was an overwhelming feeling," she recalled.

Prague has already seen a similar feat

This wasn't Bongonga's first walk of this kind — she had a similar experience in Prague. In August 2019, at the opening of the Summer Letná festival, she crossed a wire strung above the Vltava River without any safety line. The route ran from the Faculty of Law towards Letná, stretching about 350 metres, with the cable suspended roughly 35 metres above the water. The crossing took her around 40 minutes.

The Prague performance followed the same principle as the one now seen in France: Bongonga herself worked without a safety harness, while her team on the ground was responsible for keeping the cable stable. Her walk across the Vltava later became the subject of the documentary film "Tightrope Walker Above Prague."

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Source: seznamzpravy.cz