Nik Wallenda holds 11 Guinness World Records. He's crossed the Grand Canyon and the Niagara Falls on a tightrope. And now the man known as the "King of the High Wire" is back with what's quickly becoming a holiday favorite
Wallenda's Christmas show, "Wonderland Believe," features aerial artists, high wire stunts, and of course, Santa.
The show also marks the return of Lijana Wallenda, who fell from the high wire during a performance in 2017.
WUSF's Cathy Carter recently caught up with Nik Wallenda, a member of the legendary Flying Wallendas family, at his circus big top in Sarasota.
The interview below is lightly edited for clarity.
Nik, it's a new season and a new show. What are some of the highlights that we can look forward to with Wonderland this year?
Wonderland is a combination of American Ninja Warriors, Broadway and circus, and we combine those talents together. My wife writes a script for the show.
It's one of the unique aspects of what we do. And we have an amazing comedian. We have some rescue dogs that are performing some simple tricks, but more than my dogs do that sit on the couch all day.
We have an amazing aerialist who performs hand balancing. And of course, I'll be performing on the wire.
My sister will be performing for the first time under a big top since she fell and we had the accident back in 2017. Statistics say she shouldn't be alive. But not only is she alive — she's returned to the wire.
We walked across Times Square since then, live on ABC, and now she'll be walking right here in the big top and using her story to hopefully inspire and motivate others that might be facing any sort of challenge, that anything is possible.
You come from a family of circus performers; you are the seventh generation. What is it about the Wallenda family that makes you persevere, even when there have been some really tough accidents in your family?
Our family has lived by the words "the show must go on" for generations and generations. And I've adapted those to "never give up," which is the same thing. I think there's something within us.
This is not an occupation; it's not a career. It is a passion of ours. It's something we love doing. And I think the reason is that we are able to use the gifts and talents that we've been blessed with to inspire others that they can do anything too, if they set their mind to it. And that's really our goal in everything that we do.
We really want to use what we do to help others face the challenges that they're facing. I always use the analogy of when I was walking across Niagara Falls, I could have been looking at the waves and the mist and listening to that rumble, but I was focused on the prize, which was the other side.
You say that you prefer to call yourself something other than a daredevil or somebody who does stunts. Tell us a little bit more about the athleticism required for these feats that you accomplish.
Yeah, it is similar to an Olympic gymnast. Often, they train starting at a very young age, sometimes at 3 and 4 years old, and it's the same for us. We've trained our entire lives for one thing, and most of the performers in this show that you'll see have trained their entire lives.
We have a little girl that's performing here who I'm so excited about. She is 10, and she's from Ukraine, and she does this amazing act, but she started at such a young age that it's so refined already and that was the same for us.
In our family, there is a lot of athleticism in what we do. There's a lot of mental training that we do. What we do is very much mind over matter. But what people, I don't think, realize is that everything that we do in life is mind over matter.
If we want to become the greatest anything in life, it's about telling ourselves and preparing and training, but often it's in the mind that tells us that we can't. Like, "I want to run a marathon. You'll never be able to run a marathon."
It's not the people around you that are telling you that. We're telling ourselves that, and we all deal with those mind games.
One of the blessings of doing this my entire life is I've learned to control that. I would say the most valuable lesson I've learned from the wire is that I'm in control of my thoughts, and my thoughts aren't in control of me. And I think if we can grasp that as a whole, the world would be a better place.
Nik Wallenda's holiday show, Wonderland Believe, runs through Jan. 4 at University Town Center in Sarasota.
