High-Risk Activities

High-Risk Action

Anyone who has ever been to a circus and seen a high-wire trapeze act knows viscerally how fraught with danger it is. Even while they know that they are witnessing the exquisitely-timed and flawless performance of a professional who has been trained from childhood to adulthood to defy  time and space and vertigo. The sublime grace of the human body tuned to a fine balance of respect for danger and confidence in their ability, is an awesome beauty.

Photo credit: AP | In this Nov. 28, 2008, photo, Sarah Guyard-Guillot, left, and Sami Tiaumassi perform as "Forest People" during Cirque du Soleil's "Ka" at MGM Grand Resort in Las Vegas. Guyard-Guillot, a mother of two young children, was pronounced dead at a hospital late Saturday night, June 29, 2013, after falling about 50 feet from the show's stage during a performance of Cirque du Soleil's "Ka." 

But this is also an extremely high-risk activity. People can be flawless in their execution of what has become a familiar routine to them through countless repeated performances, but when such split-second timing is required to be matched with the remote but occasional failure of the human performing, to be able to meet those very specific criteria in caution, movement and timing, disaster can and occasionally does occur.

It is what happened to Cirque du Soleil performance artist Sarah Guillot-Guyard, who died on stage over the weekend, performing in the theatrical acrobatic spectacle titled KA at the MGM Grand Hotel. She was among a team of trapeze artists suspended by a wire from a vertical stage. During a simulated flight scene she slipped from her safety wire and fell about 15 metres into a pit below.

The 31-year-old mother of three children, born in Paris, was involved in circus performance since the age of 9. Sarah Guillot-Guyard was the first Cirque du Soleil performer to die during a public performance. There have been in the past years a few who have died during training exercises taking place at the Cirque's Montreal training centre.


"Your eyes can't see everywhere at the same time. We know from our investigations that humans are not well-designed for that. We do miss things that are on a collision course", explained Transportation Safety Board regional manager for aviation in the Pacific, Bill Yearwood. His remarks have nothing to do with the Cirque du Soleil accident. They refer to yet another misfortune, when near Pemberton, British Columbia four people were killed on the week-end.

A Cessna pilot, his wife, and the pilot of a glider along with another passenger all died when the two pilots seemed unaware of their trajectory, headed directly toward one another in a limited airspace and collided catastrophically. Campers at the Nairn Falls campground close to Pemberton were alarmed in the early morning to witness pieces of metal falling from the sky.


"It was just like a sea of debris coming down, it didn't seem real." The glider pilot, Rudy Rozypalek, operated the Pemberton Soaring Centre, known in the glkiding community as an instructor and sport advocate. The Cessna's flight plan indicated it was travelling from 100 Mile House to Nanaimo, B.C., and had refuelled in Lillooet. The glider took off with an engine, then switched to air currents for flight sustainability; no flight plan required.

The airspace has no radar or aircraft control guidance.