Estonian slackliner Jaan Roose completed a 160-metre-long walk on a ribbon suspended 120 metres above central Seoul on Thursday, in what organisers called South Korea's first high-altitude slackline performance.
The 34-year-old, a three-time slackline world champion, stepped off the roof of the Koreana hotel at 1pm and crossed to the Dong-A Media Center, a few hundred metres from the capital's Gyeongbokgung palace and Gwanghwamun square. Lunchtime crowds along Seoul's main boulevard watched with phones raised to the sky.
Aerial athlete's urban feats
Roose has made a name for himself slacklining dramatic urban environments, including a 185-metre-high feat between Qatar's Katara towers. In 2024, he became the first person to slackline the strait of Messina between mainland Italy and Sicily, completing the 3.6km traverse despite a fall near the end, caught by his safety harness. Last month, he covered 14.7km over 12 hours on a line above the Danube in Bratislava, Slovakia.
Midway across the Seoul line, Roose sat cross-legged, then lay flat on his back, drawing gasps from below, before rising and continuing. On reaching the Dong-A Media Center, he turned around and started his return to the hotel rooftop.
Spectators react and second performance scheduled
"Just looking at him makes my legs go weak," said office worker Kim Young-sook. "I can't imagine how he can do that without being scared. It's incredible."
"I'm worried he might fall," said Choi Eun-jung, who came out to see Roose. "I know he's a professional, but it's still a little frightening to watch."
At the halfway point on his return, Roose dropped down and waved at the crowd, then hung from the line with one arm and dangled by his feet. When he finished, the crowds clapped, some clearly relieved.
Inspiration from traditional Korean tightrope walking
At nearby Cheonggye plaza, people tried slacklines set just 30cm and 50cm off the ground. Roose was scheduled for a second performance at 4pm.
Roose said a visit in 2022 to South Korea inspired his Gwanghwamun walk. On that trip, he encountered jultagi, Korea's traditional tightrope walking, which Unesco added to its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2011. Unlike tightrope walking elsewhere, jultagi is as much comedy as acrobatics, with the walker singing, joking and dancing on the rope while trading banter with a clown on the ground as musicians play.
