By Laurie Niles: Imagine your worst performance-nerve nightmare: You have to go out on stage to play a rather difficult piece, but NO! You actually have to jump from a airplane with your fiddle - and, you're naked!
Australian violinist Glen Donnelly made world news for doing just that in New South Wales last Sunday: he jumped out of an airplane at 15,000 feet, naked, holding his violin and bow. Once the parachute opened, he played "The Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughan Williams as he descended to earth.
Somehow, this seems to be the week's biggest violin news, but let's have some fun with it. What do you think would be the scariest aspect of this stunt?
For Donnelly, this was actually a 30th-birthday gift to himself. Below, he explains his motivations: to raise awareness about body issues, and to raise money for related charities. He said he's suffered from an obsession with his own body's defects since the age of 16, and that manifested in a condition called "body dysmorphic disorder."
"On the other side of fear is freedom," he said, following his jump. "When that parachute opened, I could just be free to play the violin." Below, Donnelly talks about his reasons for doing the dive, and there is some footage (censored!) of his stunt!
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