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CIRCUS
STORIES,
LE
CIRQUE
VU
PAR…
Édition
2015
Edition
Articles by /de Kim Campbell, Crystal Chan, Maxime D.-Pomerleau, Josianne Desloges, Rebecca
Galloway, Roy Gomez Cruz, Stephen Hunt, Janie Mallet, Robin J. Miller, Kathleen Smith.
CIRCUS STORIES, LE CIRQUE VU PAR…
Initiative menée par En Piste, Circus Stories, Le cirque
vu par… a offert à 10 journalistes culturels du Canada
et du nord-est des États-Unis une résidence d’écriture
sur le cirque contemporain, pendant le festival
MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE 2015.
Cette deuxième édition, soutenue par le Conseil des
Arts du Canada et le Conseil des arts de Montréal, avait
pour objectifs de permettre aux participants de
développer un discours critique sur le cirque,
d’encourager la circulation des connaissances et de
favoriser le rôle des médias dans ce domaine.
En Piste, le regroupement national des arts du cirque,
rassemble les professionnels et les organismes du
secteur circassien et travaille à mettre en place les
conditions favorables au développement des arts du
cirque à l’échelle du Canada. Le regroupement s’allie à
de nombreux partenaires afin de soutenir les artistes, les
projets en émergence, les organismes de formation, les
producteurs et les diffuseurs.
Du 2 au 5 juillet 2015, huit journalistes du Canada
– Calgary, Moncton, Montréal, Québec, Toronto,
Victoria – et deux des États-Unis – Chicago – ont
contribué à une série de débats thématiques avec
modérateur. Ils ont également rencontré différents
experts du milieu circassien ainsi que les créateurs et
interprètes de spectacles auxquels ils ont assisté dans le
cadre
du
sixième
festival
MONTRÉAL
COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE.
L’activité s’inspire d’une formule européenne, Unpack
the arts1, et les participants ont vécu une expérience
unique, guidés par Yohann Floch. Sensibilisés aux
enjeux du cirque contemporain et conscientisés à
l’étendue de ce paysage artistique, ces journalistes ont
approfondi leur réflexion sur la dramaturgie du cirque
et les nouvelles tendances dans le domaine. Ils vous
livrent dans les textes de cette publication le fruit de
leurs observations et de leurs réflexions sur un art dont
ils ont appris à mieux connaître les multiples visages.
Initiated by En Piste, Circus Stories, Le cirque vu par…
offered to 10 cultural journalists from Canada and the
northeastern United States a residency program on
contemporary circus during the MONTRÉAL
COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE 2015. The aim of this
North American premiere, supported by the Arts
Council of Canada and the Arts Council of Montreal,
was to develop critical discourses regarding circus arts,
to encourage the circulation of knowledge and to foster
the role of media within circus arts.
En Piste, the Circus Arts National Network, gathers
professionals and organizations from the Canadian
circus arts sector and works towards establishing
favourable conditions for the development of circus arts
in Canada. En Piste networks with numerous partners
for the purpose of supporting performers, new projects,
training organizations, show producers and presenters.
From July 2nd to July 5th, 8 journalists from Canada
– Calgary, Moncton, Montréal, Québec, Toronto,
Victoria – and 2 from the United States – Chicago –
contributed to a series of thematic debates with a
moderator. They also met with different experts from
the circus world as well as creators and performers of
the shows they attended as part of the sixth
MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE festival.
The activity, run by Yohann Floch, is inspired by a
European program, Unpack the arts2, gave the
participants a unique experience. Sensitized to issues of
contemporary circus and made aware of the extent of
the artistic landscape, the participants have deepened
their reflection on the dramaturgy of the circus and new
trends in the field. In this publication, they share their
observations and their thoughts about the many faces of
the contemporary circus arts.
Happy reading !
En Piste team
Bonne lecture !
L’équipe d’En Piste
1. Projet coordonné par Circuscentrum (Gand, Belgique) et co-financé
par le programme Culture de la Commission européenne.
2. Project coordinated by Circuscentrum (Gand, Belgique) and cofunded with the support from the European Commission.
Page 1
EN PISTE | CIRCUS STORIES, LE CIRQUE VU PAR… | DEUXIÈME ÉDITION, JUILLET 2015
| SECOND EDITION, JULY 2015
VIVE LA DIFFÉRENCE
BY KIM CAMPBELL | Graphics by Nicholas Spence
I was in Montreal, strolling the campus of the City of
Circus
Arts
during
the
MONTRÉAL
COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE festival with 10 cultural
journalists. It was only Canada, a few short hours by
plane from Chicago, but the simple differences there
captured my attention. Like the novelty of food items in
the grocery store, the colorful money, brightly speckled
mailboxes, and compost bins next to every recycling
bin. My ears rejoiced at the French. I walked through
neighborhoods with intriguing names like Le Plateau,
Mile End and Gay Village. My palate rejoiced because
Montreal does food well and my intellect stirred
because I was surrounded by writers and circus industry
professionals who were excited to discuss things like
dramaturgy and prouesse (a difficult feat). Even my
opinions were jostled as they adjusted to new
information about the history and motivations of circus
producers and what is happening in the circus world
today.
Before Montréal
Résumé | VIVE LA DIFFÉRENCE | En comparant le
concept mondial du cirque avec le concept du cirque
aux États-Unis, l’auteure explore 3 spectacles très
différents présentés dans 3 lieux tout aussi différents
pendant le festival MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT
CiRQUE 2015, à partir des caractéristiques de 3 genres
et de 3 tendances en cirque. Le cabaret BARBU Foire
Electro Trad, le spectacle Beyond de la compagnie
Australienne C!RCA et le spectacle extérieur Duels
font l’objet de comparaisons et les contrastes entre ces
productions permettent de les apprécier pour ce qu’ils
apportent au mouvement du cirque contemporain.
the human potential to soar, then it could be neglecting
the whole picture, including the tendency of humans to
fall flat on their faces, to do unsavory things, to test
themselves to experience pain examine choices that are
difficult. It turns out that circus can do these things too,
and more. In Montreal, I saw firsthand how circus is just
as versatile as dance and as diverse as theater, capable
of conveying the whole spectrum of the human
condition.
I learned that the three most prominent phases of circus
history are traditional (classic entertainment with feats
and spectacle), nouveau (social and/or political layers,
a story) and contemporary (abstract, deconstruction of
methods). Yet these three phases are rarely distinct
from one another in current circus productions.
Before I set foot in Montreal, I had a different opinion
of what circus was. It was a spectacle, a joyous
celebration of skill and art and a great evening out,
sometimes it told a story, but it better be an entertaining
one or it wasn’t worth the bus fare to get there. I was
excited by what circus said about humanity—‘See, if
we can do this, then you can do anything!’
But intrinsic in that is the rejection of other aspects of
humanity, because if circus favors the representation of
In the United States, the public often sees circus in
black and white; either as traditional Ringling Brothers
Big Top style or as nouveau Cirque Du Soleil style.
Circus that does not fit in to those categories often
doesn’t happen, doesn’t get promoted, or gets labelled
as something else, like physical theater. Yet Canada,
like Europe and Australia, has a stunning array of circus
that encompasses the traditional, nouveau and
contemporary models.
Expecting circus to fit within the confines of familyfriendliness or spectacle does a disservice to the whole
art form because circus that must be classified as A or
B denies the unlimited possibilities between those
categories. Most importantly, when there is a deep
divide between disciplines within an art form, it can
affect the public’s support, forcing them to ally
Page 2
themselves with one style over another and allowing the
public’s image of the genre as a whole to suffer
misinterpretation.
With new terminology and some historical context, my
sense of curiosity was stirred by the shows we saw,
none of which could be classified solely as either
traditional or contemporary. As a result, I gained a
broader definition of what circus is. I chose three shows
from three different venues to illustrate how each was
influenced by the historical development phases of
circus as well as the current trends.
Cirque Alfonse— Walking the Tightrope between
Contemporary and Traditional
Juggling the Trends
Beyond the three main phases, there are many trends
rippling through the circus world. The three we saw
pop-up at the festival (with the assistance of the
experienced eye of our host, Yohann Floch) function as
subcategories that re-interpret the established genres of
traditional, nouveau and contemporary respectively.
They are; urban circus—with an emphasis on street
shows and the collective performance versus solo acts;
circus-in-the-margins—where circus is a tool in the
vehicle of the story; and stripped off circus–circus that
goes back to the core skills, often shedding costume and
story in favor of technical craft.
BARBU Foire Electro Trad by Cirque Alfonse was
presented in a classic cabaret venue, the Olympia. The
cast came with their own ideas about how to entertain
cabaret style, perhaps borrowing from their previous
success with Timber!, a show that delved in to
lumberjack lore from the Quebec region where they hail
from. Like Timber!, there was a folksy element, but
unlike Timber!, BARBU is a modern jaunt into an
imagined culture. In the old days people worked 14
hour days, director Alain Francoeur explained to our
group during a pre-show interview. So people went to
the circus to be entertained and to forget their troubles.
He admits “Normally in contemporary circus we don’t
like this word (entertainment). We reject it. But we
inspired ourselves from that and built on that, looking
for what we wouldn’t normally do that we could do.”
The vision, according to Francoeur, was to explore their
heritage, focusing on the fairs that sprung up in Quebec
in the mid-eighteen hundreds which included a mix of
vaudeville, music and circus, but to add a touch of
modern to it, which explains the roller-skating, mud
wrestling and overtones of electronic music
interspersed with classic folk songs. “We respect the
codes in a narrow way in the first half, and in the second
half we expose everything. It’s a commentary on circus
for us, to go back to the roots of the circus in Montreal,”
explained Francoeur.
As Cirque Alfonse honed in on traditional circus, it also
followed the urban circus aesthetic; to work as a group,
to appeal to the social animal in us all, and to connect
with the mythology of circus history by reveling in core
skills. There is something magical about their rustic
style that touches on peoples’ nostalgia and yet feels
exotic and alive. Perhaps this magic has a lot to do with
the fact that the cast is a mix of family members and
friends–they even call themselves a clan. But their idea
to present straight traditional circus in the first half and
then expose the codes in the second half fell short of its
goal. This may be because the codes of traditional
circus are integral to it. Exposing or playing with them,
for example, maintaining a constant level of skills
throughout an act rather than building it up, might have
Page 3
bored or annoyed audiences. Cirque Alfonse did neither
with their brave attempt to examine and critique their
art form; to poke fun at it and yet celebrate its roots
while also being modern-and entertaining. The goal was
so ambitious that it was bound to have holes in it,
although they were hoping the layers of beard hair and
circus lore might cover the holes. If their intent wasn’t
entirely clear, the crowd enthusiasm remained high
nonetheless and entertainment status was achieved.
This attempt to start with tradition just to break out of it
translated to acts with turn-of-the-century costumes,
with juggling, hand-to-hand acrobatics, a magic act,
hoops, lyra and teeterboard. In between, Lucas Jolly
played ‘the mentalist’, the antithesis to a clown,
projecting ominous guru energy to comic effect.
In the second half, more than the codes were exposed.
The old-timey costumes were shed in favor of
underwear, and in a few cases, full frontal nudity. The
most imaginative use of costumery was when
Carabinier-Lepine performed on Cyr wheel on the
narrow catwalk dressed as a giant disco ball. There was
Chinese pole, banquine acrobatics, a ping pong to
mouth game, golf club balancing and most amusingly,
beer barrel tossing made all the more ridiculous because
it was performed by strong bearded men in their
underwear. Although few traditional circus props were
used in this half, the acts themselves were not especially
ground breaking. They seemed more like explorations
of modern objects as props.
As BARBU walked the line between old and new, it also
walked the line between urban circus and stripped-off
circus. They committed to stripping off unnecessary
elements (traditional costumes and props) and isolating
hard tricks, while also conveying the clan-like dynamic
of family. Giant screens projected images during the
entire show. In the first half those images were idyllic
nature shots. During the second half, the imagery was
quite personal, ranging from shaving men, men
romping nude in a field, to close-ups on body parts, thus
exposing not the codes, the fun they have as a close-knit
group.
Duels—Street Nouveau
Duels was free to the public and on the streets of
Montreal. Keeping circus on the streets is something
that interests Duels director Anthony Venisse. Our
group met with him after the premiere. He explained
how he used his show to “transpose circus acts on to the
people” by including the audience in the performance
in unique ways, and embedding performers in the
audience. He began circus as a boy, drawn to it because
he says it is “the only art that has such a high risk. Even
if the risk is calculated, it’s not stupid.”
This is not Venisse’s first experience creating spectacle;
he has directed Les Minutes complètement cirque at the
festival since 2010. His original idea for Les Minutes
was to grab the attention of people going about their
daily business on the street with the feats of circus
performers, and sometimes taking individuals captive.
The performers rove around the street, pulling in
volunteers to join them flash mob style, but all the while
the performers are obeying Venisse’s choreography
instructions on a headset. They play games of tag, hideand-seek, and freeze. Then they invite the onlookers to
join them at the square for a more choreographed show.
Duels was a symbolic battle between air and earth,
complete with many players, including a community
cast. Acts were performed on ziplines, rooftops, tight
wire, the ground itself, silks, pole, and trapezes as our
attention was drawn from rooftop to ground to a giant
tower rig, depending on the cues given to us from the
lighting and music.
The show was dazzling, if not precisely a story. Being
set outdoors it would seem to be mainly intended as
urban circus meant to thrill. Yet the theme of struggle,
the efforts to highlight regular people, and a moving
segment involving hand balancers and a woman in a
wheelchair indicated that the production was meant to
be more than a collective work but also a nouveau
creation, with commentary on the struggles inherent in
humanity and our politics. Although it did extoll the
trappings of traditional circus; keeping the acts as
simple displays of increasing skill; the lighting,
costumes and music were carefully designed to convey
a futuristic mood.
The themes, though lightly played, put the production
half way between urban circus and circus-in-the
margins stylistically. The message was a human one, as
inspiring as it was simple; we all struggle, we all have
challenges, and we all do better when we work together.
What message could be more apt for a street
performance aimed at the people? Venisse took a risk
in orchestrating such a lively, and highly produced
show in the outdoors with such a large cast, but he
himself would admit it is a calculated risk, and one that
draws the crowd’s attention.
Reading Beyond the Lines with Circa
Circa’s Beyond was performed at the première circus
venue, Tohu. The circus was meant to be seen this way,
with the performers playing to an audience in 360
degrees as in a Big Top, and C!RCA delivered a wellrounded performance in spite of their careful distance
from classic circus. Sometimes the cast appeared as
animals, dressed in the furry heads of Easter bunnies, or
leaping around, playing and fighting like beasts. At
Page 4
other times they seemed perfectly composed,
cooperative, riffing off of their connection to one
another. The enigmatic theme of Beyond is to cross the
imaginary lines we create with our definitions, such as
the line between animal and human, and sane and
insane. These motifs put Beyond squarely in the circusin-the-margins trend. But also the emphasis on
technical skills, simple props, and astounding feats
place it firmly in the stripped off circus trend.
Although the acts were presented in cabaret fashion,
there is cohesion to the cast’s motions, where patterns
emerged that highlighted their trust in one another as
they took enormous risks together. The traditional bag
of tricks was taken to extremes on straps, Chinese pole,
silks, and trapeze, but in surprising ways. For example,
Rowan Heydon solved a Rubic’s cube while being
climbed upon in an acrobatic manner by insistent
companions. The four Women were on equal footing
with men, basing them males often, hoisting them on to
their shoulders and tossing them to partners with ease.
The female performers were also climbed on an
bounced upon, stretching not just what we think the
human body is capable of but also challenging our
gender biases.
The costumes flirted with the notion of cabaret and the
animal past of circus–revealing a hint of feathers on
otherwise stripped down circus underwear- a fancy
gown removed quickly to expose a plain leotard, and a
button- up vest as a nod to vaudeville.
Beyond falls in to the trend of stripped off circus
because there is so much emphasis on technical skill
that props, story, lighting and costumes seem to be
afterthoughts. It also skirts the edge of circus-in-themargins as they play with literary ideas like manversus-self and man-versus-nature. At one point, as the
cast comically restrained one another from breaking out
in to animal cries, a giant blue silk arose and was passed
along over the audience’s head, evoking the possibility
of transcendence. While it appeared to have little to do
with the show, every hand reached up to touch it.
Ultimately Beyond works in spite of this incongruity,
because it plays upon two circus trends to combine
contradictory ideas; as circus-in-the-margins it shows
how humans transcend their limits and as stripped off
circus it reminds us just how rooted we are in our animal
natures.
Beyond by C!RCA | Photo © Cindy Boyce
Taking the City of Circus Arts Home
Fortunately, the popularity of circus is growing in the
US. There are more recreational circus schools than
ever before, established educators are expanding the
important work of social circus, and pre-professional
programs are popping up in major cities. As a result, the
appreciation of circus as a catalyst to personal growth,
social change, and artistic expression is growing. As the
US opens up to circus diversity it will naturally
continue to explore this living art form further. It is my
hope that with this growth will come the worldwide
awareness that circus is a national treasure in the US as
it is in Canada.
I spent an extra day in Montreal, savoring the
differences between it and my hometown. I listened to
live rap and jazz, strolled through the outdoor market of
Jean-Talon, sampling foraged foods and smelling
exotic spices. These experiences altered my
understanding of the world minutely, but awakened
something deeper than the senses. Like the circus acts I
saw there, this required patience, some background
information, and a willingness to set aside expectations,
but what resulted was eye-opening. Vive la difference!
KIM CAMPBELL is a writer and arts critic. She is a staff writer for Gapers Block in Chicago, and editor at American
Circus Educators Magazine. She writes about the arts, food, and circus for a variety of publications. When not writing
or absorbing city culture, she likes to spend time in nature kayaking and juggling where no one can see her drop the
club. You can find her on Twitter twitter.com/kimzyn, on Instagram instagram.com/kimzyn, or on her blog Kimzyn
Chronicles http://blog.kimzyn.com/
Page 5
NO PAIN, NO HUMANITY
A ONE-MAN COMEDY AND A SEXUALIZED HAND-TO-HAND ACT PLAY WITH PAIN
BY CRYSTAL CHAN
Lights, curtains, action! But as a clown musician in a
pressed tuxedo strides onstage for The Pianist, he finds
the curtain transformed into an occupational hazard. His
hands struggle to part it, at first confidently, then
desperately, but it won’t open. And when lights turn on
for Warm, things literally heat up. Massive blocks of
heavy-duty lights, five rows high, flank both sides of
the stage. They start to emit heat – a lot of heat. The two
hand-to-hand acrobatic performers step into a mirage, a
heated fantasy in a bubble of hot air that edges upwards
to 50, 55, 60 degrees Celsius. They can barely see in the
blinding light. They sweat.
Such hazards aren’t new to circus. In fact hazard is the
lifeblood. You could say circus is watching people take
risks. It’s sadism. Take the Mexican wire walker’s
flirtation with death from 40 feet above the spectators’
upturned heads, the calculated trip over a jumping rope
on a wheel of death the first, second, but not third try.
Or in the realm of physical theatre, there’s always the
juggler’s dropped balls right before a trick that milks
the applause. Or that staple of transforming pain into
entertainment: slapstick.
However, classical circuses often present such hazards
in a supernatural world that mutes our awareness of the
challenge and pain the performers face. Depending on
if you’re talking about European family mud shows and
cabarets or North American Barnum-Bailey-Ringling
and Cirque du Soleil blockbusters, this is done in
different ways. But the result is the same. The circus
world is not our world. It is a place to forget the world
and not see it. It has its own rules, for example
concerning gravity. And its performers are not of our
world, either. Performers are larger than life: better,
braver, louder, funnier than us, and unlike us, they
command the applause to match. They are magical.
They elicit Schadenfreude and awe. They’re cartoons in
a cartoon world. So although circus artists have always
suffered, their audiences were not often expected to fear
for – and feel for – them.
Since around the 1960s, certain circuses have broken
these traditions in different ways. Performers are
individuals; performers are people. What’s interesting
about shows like The Pianist and Warm is they explore
Résumé | PAS DE DOULEUR, PAS D’HUMANITÉ | Le
risque constitue un moteur pour le cirque. On pourrait
dire que le cirque se délecte de regarder les artistes
prendre des risques ou qu’il s’agit de sadisme.
Cependant, le cirque traditionnel présente souvent le
danger comme faisant partie d’un monde surnaturel qui
atténue notre conscience du risque et de la douleur
auxquels les artistes de cirque sont confrontés au
quotidien. Depuis les années ’60, certains cirques ont
rompu avec cette tradition : acrobates et interprètes sont
des individus, des êtres. Deux spectacles, Le Pianiste et
Warm, explorent spécifiquement cette tendance. Le
Pianiste est une comédie physique sans paroles créée
par Thomas Monckton. Dans Warm, un duo de main à
main et une comédienne évoluent dans une température
qui approche les 50 degrés Celsius. Ces deux spectacles
placent les interprètes dans des constructions
déshumanisées pour ensuite les transformer, par la
douleur, en des personnes auxquelles nous pouvons
nous identifier. Le risque et la douleur se révèlent
pendant la performance et y sont intégrés, plutôt que
cachés. D’une certaine manière, le changement du
cirque en un tout se retrouve en miniature dans ces deux
spectacles, quoique de deux façons étonnamment
différentes.
this tension directly. They place the performers in
dehumanized constructions then free them, through
pain, into people we could relate to. Challenge and pain
are revealed and incorporated into the performance,
rather than muted. In a way, the shift in circus as a
whole is contained in miniature in these two shows,
albeit in startlingly different ways.
The Pianist
Like the performers of classical circus, classical
musicians are held aloft. They’re considered as
distinguished and elevated from their audience. We
watch them because they display talents we do not
possess. Like traditional circus performers, classical
musicians usually observe codes of group dress and
behaviour. We come for the tricks in circus, and we
come for the melodies at a classical music concert. We
Page 6
don’t often watch classical musicians for themselves;
like their instruments, they’re just a medium between us
and the music.
are very much a trope. Musical clown Bill Irwin was
even the first performance artist to win a MacArthur
genius grant.
The comparison is even clearer in Europe, where
there’s a regal and opulent history to circus, which was
often treated as a VIP experience much like classical
music. (In America, clowns connote horror movie
villains, birthday entertainers, or marketing machines;
the most famous clowns are likely Bozo and Ronald
McDonald.) The Pianist is a physical comedy without
spoken script. Thomas Monckton created the hilarious
show for Helsinki-based Circo Aereo after studying at
Jacques Lecoq’s theatre school in Paris. Lecoq is
known for neutral mask work that covers a performer’s
face and therefore encourages corporeal expression,
and Monckton is a master at conveying ideas through
his lanky, twitchy body, which is topped by a head of
electric-shocked orange hair.
Indeed Monckton’s tricks are variations on bits already
presented in shows. He stretches his knees and hands
into a stunning narrative under Lycra, presents finger
figure puppetry on the piano stool, dangles awkwardly
from a chandelier. There are echoes of Mummenschanz.
There are echoes of Bugs Bunny. Even piano moving
slapstick was already captured on film by Charlie
Chaplin. And no less mass produced a machine as
Cirque du Soleil has already disseminated similar bits
before: Denis Lacombe was losing pieces of his score
in a tuxedo as far back as in the 1980s for them; Kà and
the newer Kurios feature finger puppets; Corteo has the
chandelier act; Varekai the uncooperative spotlight. But
nothing here feels recycled. Everything’s done
excellently. Monckton’s seemingly unskilled fumbling
reveals an extremely high awareness of his body, his
apparatuses, and his props.
Monckton studied piano as a child, and dreamed of
being a professional musician. He changed his mind
when he “realized it required a lot of practice and
dedication” – and studied aerials, acrobatics, juggling,
and physical theatre instead, all skills on display in The
Pianist. The irony, of course, is that these skills require
no less dedication and thoughtful training than playing
the piano.
The difference, perhaps, is that these skills can be
showcased in singular ways through a tailor-made show
such as The Pianist. Contrast this to the classical
pianist, who is first and foremost trained to interpret the
repertoire and ideas of others. In The Pianist Monckton
performs aerials on a chandelier, acrobatics on, in and
under a grand piano, and juggles pieces of paper from a
musical score.
The show starts when Monckton eventually emerges,
with great difficulty, from behind the black curtains.
Dressed in coat and tails, Monckton plans to bow to the
audience, sit at the piano, and play us some Chopin.
What follows is an hour of mishaps that get in the way
of this simple sequence of events: his music tumbles
into the ground, he bumps and trips into every object on
and above stage, his lighting technician swivels the
spotlight away from him, his piano breaks. Even his
tuxedo betrays him.
The show about all the things that go wrong before a
show: it’s a common set-up for a comedy. Clowns, even
traditionally, served as our catharsis for pain. They were
the only performers encouraged to visibly suffer. So it’s
true that there’s little radical about how The Pianist sets
a performer loose from the dehumanizing perfection of
his craft, in this case classical music performance.
Clowns traditionally played music, and musical clowns
Just as a monologue in theatre can expand one thought
for the sake of reflection and dissection, clowning
expands and dissects one series of movements. Here it
is the walk from behind a curtain to sit at the piano and
play, something that should take a few minutes, that’s
elongated into an epic battle of conflicts. While clowns
have always covered transitions and mistakes – think of
the maxim, ‘send in the clowns’ – in this one-man-show
Monckton is both the act that we are waiting for – the
musical performer – and the clown sent in to artfully
stall while technical difficulties are addressed. The
humanity here is that as classical music and all the
snobbery and perfection it connotes is broken down into
fun, it’s not really at the expense of the beleaguered
pianist. Monckton’s character shows us he’s having as
much fun dealing creatively with the challenges and
painful problems that arise as we are having in the
audience.
Thomas Monckton in The Pianist | Photo © Cindy Boyce
Page 7
Warm
The performers of Warm, on the other hand, are not
having fun. The show’s roots are sadistic. The creator,
David Bobbée, is the director of the Centre Dramatique
National de Haute-Normandie, a regional branch of the
French national theatre. Bobbée often incorporates
circus artists into theatre and multidisciplinary works,
even once casting an acrobat as Hamlet. While working
with a hand-to-hand duo on another show, he observed
the performers putting mag, or powdered magnesium
carbonate, on their hands. “It’s for the sweat,” they
explained, as sweat was the enemy of the hand-to-hand
routine, an act relying on a solid grip during the skinto-skin contact that propels one performer up over the
other.
If Bobbée had been in a cartoon, a light bulb would have
appeared above his head and devil horns sprouted from
his temples. He’d get them to sweat, all right. The
resulting show is performed in a heated theatre, the
temperature of which hovers around 45 degrees Celsius
in the audience, and rises up to 60 degrees Celsius for
the performers onstage. This is torture for anyone to
endure during forty-five minutes, and is dramatically
worse for the two men performing physical feats that
would induce excessive sweating in even a comfortably
cool room.
During the performance the duo, Colombians who’ve
worked together for seventeen years, walk on stage,
stretch and warm up together, and execute a series of
lifts and positions. Wilmer Marquez and Edward
Aleman are dressed in street clothes: t-shirts and jeans.
To combat the heat, they take their shirts off and drink
the bottles of water placed across the stage. But the
sweat and strain makes the positions harder and harder.
As the show progresses, Aleman, the flyer, begins to
slip and fall. In one lip-biting trick, Aleman uses
Marquez’s sweat to slide down from his shoulders to
his forearms while in a handstand. By the end, the two
must execute lifts they did with relative ease at the
beginning of the show two or three times before getting
them right.
The performance of the two men is presented simply.
There is no choreographed narrative through their
gestures. We even see them warming up. Bobbée,
however, imposes an explicit narrative on them. It’s
explicit in both senses of the word. A third performer
delivers a monologue the entire time. The actor,
Séverine Ragaigne, conjures the performance of the two
men. She describes herself lying in her bedroom during
a heatwave, the two men as pawns of her sexual fantasy.
Traditionally, the hand-to-hand discipline can be one of
the most overtly dehumanizing of the circus skills.
Often these acts are statuesque, and present poses in
static tableaux. The performers, and the relationship
between the performers, is dehumanized. Instead their
bodies are presented as artistic objects. There’s even a
common look where bodies are painted gold,
emphasizing the body’s parallel to a statue. Such an act
can be enjoyed as a work of visual art, like painting or
photography, rather than as a dance or movement based
act.
Here, the dehumanization so common to the discipline
is addressed directly through sexual sadism. The actress
pushes the two men into their beautiful, difficult poses
for her own viewing pleasure. The result is not sexy. It
is unsettling: the barbed commands she yells at them are
so aggressive that they make the audience
uncomfortable, rather than titillated. And the
commands elicit from the men looks of increasing pain,
demand for mercy, and anger.
As a work of dramaturgy, this framing narrative doesn’t
really work. The text and staging is messy, overdone,
off. The text is written by Ronan Chéneau, a man.
Coming out of the actress’s mouth, the words supposed
to guide our voyeurism of an intimate female fantasy
doesn’t feel quite right.
But maybe that’s the point. Whether Bobbée intended
this or not, what’s more interesting is the very
unsexiness of it. Watching the performers suffer breaks
the spell. Isn’t there something sadistic about expecting
our circus artists to appear beautiful and superhuman,
just as there is about expecting our porn stars or
fantasies to? We cannot continue to imagine that
difficult tasks are somehow easy for superhuman circus
performers: we see them sweat just like us. And the pain
of the performers really hits home because we’re
feeling the same heat, and the same resulting discomfort
and sweat, while sitting in the audience.
Warm forces the audience to consider how complicit we
are in creating narrative. There’s nothing sexual about
the men’s movements. Nothing sexual about their attire.
Compare this to the two men who performed hand-tohand in Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity, who strip into
their underwear, slap each other, embrace, and literally
kiss on the mouth. But when we hear the woman’s text
– “their dicks / are hard / against me” – and we see the
performers’ glistening muscles in a hot room, we
project onto the men. In the hot room we start to see
them in the haze of a gay sauna. We read sexual tension
into their movements.
At the start of The Pianist and Warm, Monckton is
billed as a perfect classical musician and Marquez and
Page 8
Aleman as perfect sexual fantasies. But when
Monckton can’t play the piano he is no longer a master
musician entertaining us by doing something that most
of the people in the audience cannot do; and when
Marquez and Aleman do not hide any part of their
process, from their warm-up to their overheated,
strained muscles, they are no longer demigods. All three
become human beings improvising with the challenges
imposed on them. In this way both shows expose the act
of performance as each performance falls apart.
Monckton comes into the audience, looking for help.
The audience of Warm is sweating, too. As its actor
explains: “Alive / Everything equal in the heat, / All.”
What is the distinction, anyway, between them and us?
Circus artists aren’t superhuman. It takes hard work to
pull off the tricks that seem effortless and fantastical
under the bright lights of a big top, when the pain and
discipline of a performer is often hidden under a smile
and a neon bodysuit. Their pain, for our pleasure. .
Edward Aleman et Wilmer Marquez dans Warm © Sophie Calleu
CRYSTAL CHAN is a writer and editor based in Montreal. She is the Editor of the Quebec Writers’ Federation’s QWF
Writes and has written for the CBC, Montreal Gazette, Reader’s Digest, and Maisonneuve, among others. She was the
Managing Editor of La Scena Musicale and a film critic for the Montreal Mirror. www.crystal-chan.com
Page 9
LE CIRQUE AU SINGULIER
PAR JOSIANNE DESLOGES
Contrairement au théâtre ou au cinéma, le cirque inspire
rarement des portraits d’artistes dans les journaux et les
autre médias. Les noms des artistes sont peu diffusés,
on présente plutôt la compagnie et le concept du
spectacle. Dans les grandes compagnies comme le
Cirque du Soleil, il peut y avoir jusqu’à une dizaine
d’interprètes qui se succéderont pour jouer le même
rôle, repris inlassablement de la même manière qu’à la
création. Le cirque contemporain est toutefois en train
de changer la donne, en élaborant des créations plus
personnelles et en se nourrissant de la vie de tournée,
voire de la vie tout simplement, pour élaborer des
spectacles.
À partir de trois entrevues menées pendant le festival
Montréal complètement cirque, nous avons recueilli les
points de vue d’artistes dont le port d'attache est la
région de Québec, même s'ils sillonnent le monde pour
exercer leur métier.
Francis Roberge : briller avec les barbus
Francis Roberge se présente comme le « petit
nouveau » du Cirque Alfonse, qu'il a rejoint pour
remplacer un porteur de Timber ! et pour la création de
BARBU foire électro trad. Dans ce cabaret déjanté,
l'athlétique colosse exécute pour la première fois des
numéros solos et passe la deuxième partie du spectacle
en slip, à l'instar de ses confrères.
Le spectacle inusité, qui mélange les codes du cirque et
de la musique traditionnelle québécoise à ceux du disco
et de la musique électronique, fait courir les foules pour
un deuxième été, à l'Olympia cette fois. « L'an dernier,
il ne restait plus de billets et les gens nous appelaient
personnellement pour savoir s'ils pouvaient se faufiler
par la porte d'en arrière. C'était la folie », raconte
Francis Roberge.
Abstract | THE SINGULAR CIRCUS | Circus, as opposed
to cinema and television, rarely inspires artist portraits
in newspapers and other media. Names of circus artists
are not well known, with a tendency to present the name
of the company and show concept rather than
mentioning the performers In big companies like
Cirque du Soleil, up to ten performers, one after
another, can play the same part in a show, repeating the
role over and over again as it was developed in the
show’s initial creation. Contemporary circus is
changing this with more personal creations, drawing
inspiration from tour life as well as everyday life.
Interviews from the MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT
CIRQUE festival with Francis Roberge of Cirque
Alfonse, Raphaël Dubé and Maxim Laurin from
Machine de Cirque, as well Philippe Dreyfuss of La
Barbotte allow for a sampling of singular views on
circus.
mérité. « On a fait 72 spectacles en 5 semaines en mars
dernier. J'ai arrêté de m'entraîner – et ça paraît dans la
troupe que je suis celui qui aime s'entraîner. Les gars
sont lourds, c'est dur pour le dos, mais pour tenir le
coup, je devais faire le strict minimum. »
Jonathan Casaubon s'est d'ailleurs blessé le soir de la
première. L'Australien Tom Flanagan, qui s'en tire plus
qu'honorablement comme voltigeur, même si sa
spécialité est l'art clownesque, l'a remplacé au pied levé
dès le lendemain.
Toujours en tournée, celui-ci n'a plus d'appartement
depuis 2012, mais s'est offert le plaisir d'une chambre
dans une commune de cirque pendant tout son séjour
montréalais. « J'ai mes deux lunchs dans mon sac, je
n'ai pas à aller dans un fast-food après le show. Mettre
ses bobettes dans un tiroir, ça fait du bien aussi ! »
La troupe passera tout le mois d'août au festival Fringe
à Édimbourg, puis s'offrira un mois de repos bien
Photo © Cindy Boyce
Antoine Carabinier-Lépine et Geneviève Morin dans BARBU
Page 10
Roberge a lui aussi dû sortir de sa zone de confort.
Après maints essais et erreurs et une boutade, il a
développé un numéro où il fait tenir plusieurs bâtons de
golf les uns sur les autres, en les soutenant d'une seule
main. Il a aussi élaboré une séquence où il fait virevolter
un lourd baril de bière pression dans les airs.
L'ancien membre de l'équipe canadienne de rafting, qui
a commencé le cirque sur le tard, à 25 ans, aime
visiblement réinventer la manière de jouer les hommes
forts et les porteurs – voire les voltigeurs. Pirouetter
dans les airs est une heureuse sensation pour celui qui a
habituellement les deux pieds bien ancrés au sol. Et
qu'en est-il des bobettes ? « On voulait dépasser nos
limites, mais sans avoir l'air d'être des danseurs. C'est
devenu sexy, c'est devenu charmant », répond-il.
français Ugo Dario, en attente d'un visa. « Après la
remise de prix, on a chargé le camion, conduit toute la
nuit, fait le montage du décor à l'aube et on a répété
toute la journée avec Vincent (Dubé, fondateur de la
troupe et metteur en scène) pour qu'il apprenne le
show », racontent-ils. Ugo est arrivé quelques jours
plus tard, 20 minutes avant le lever du rideau. « Il y
avait une drive incroyable. Ce soir-là, on a reçu deux
offres de producteurs de Boston et du Chili ! »
La capitale nationale n'a pas encore pu accueillir un des
spectacles du Cirque Alfonse, mais le noyau dur de la
troupe faisait partie du spectacle Cabotinage, de Vague
de cirque, présenté à L'Anglicane de Lévis à l'été 2011.
BARBU foire électro trad du Cirque Alfonse était
présenté à l'Olympia du 19 juin au 12 juillet.
Photo © Machine de cirque | Sur la photo : Maxim Laurin,
Yohann Trépanier, Raphaël Dubé et Ugo Dario
Raphaël Dubé et Maxim Laurin : les péripéties de
Machine de cirque
La première année d'existence de Machine de cirque est
marquée par les succès et les péripéties, que les
acrobates Raphaël Dubé et Maxim Laurin se sont fait
un plaisir de raconter avec un enthousiasme contagieux.
Il y a d'abord eu une grange, dans Portneuf, en avril.
« C'est un endroit super pour répéter, le seul truc, c'est
qu'à cette période, il fait plus froid dedans que dehors à
cause de l'humidité. Pendant le numéro des serviettes
(un numéro créé par Raphaël et Yohann Trépanier, qui
forment le duo Les Beaux-frères, dans lequel ils tentent
de cacher leurs parties intimes de différentes façons
avec chacun une serviette), on pouvait faire de la buée
avec nos bouches », raconte Laurin en mimant le tout.
« Puis notre premier système de chauffage faisait
tellement de bruit qu'on n'arrivait pas à se parler »,
renchérit Dubé.
Les semaines de création ont donné un spectacle tout à
fait inusité, où, quinze ans après l’apocalypse, cinq
hommes survivent toujours, tentant de rencontrer
d’autres rescapés tout en créant des machines
surprenantes. Dans ce monde en pièces détachées, ils
rivalisent d’originalité pour conserver une parcelle
d’humanité.
Après avoir mis la main sur deux médailles d'or au
Festival international de cirque Vaudreuil-Dorion, ils
ont dû se rendre au Connecticut sans leur confrère
Leur spectacle évolue constamment et prendra de
l’ampleur, puisqu’ils seront deux fois plus nombreux
sur scène pour présenter leur spectacle neuf fois par
semaine en Europe cette année (six mois dans trois
villes) et l'an prochain (quatre mois dans deux autres
villes), avant de faire une tournée avec le duo comique
suisse Cuche et Barbezat, en 2017.
Le spectacle éponyme de Machine de cirque était
présenté du 8 au 12 juillet à la TOHU.
Philippe Dreyfuss : histoires de cirque
Après plusieurs années sur les routes, notamment avec
le cirque Éloize et avec son duo de cirque de rue Les
dudes, le Suisse Philippe Dreyfuss a fini par avoir envie
de se poser. Il garde un pied-à-terre à Québec depuis
une dizaine d'années, enseigne à l'École de cirque de
Québec et a entrepris, avec Gonzalo Coloma et Andy
Giroux, de créer un spectacle fait sur mesure pour les
petites salles de spectacles québécoises.
Le hic ? Les spectacles de cirque ne tournent presque
pas au Québec et, comme le cirque Alfonse, la
compagnie La Barbotte risque d'aller en Europe avant
de circuler sur le territoire qui l'a vu naître.
Ce sont justement les anecdotes survenues pendant
leurs multiples pérégrinations qui ont nourri le
spectacle Entre deux eaux, à l'affiche quatre soirs au
Page 11
festival MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CIRQUE.
« Dans des partys, lorsqu'on se met à raconter nos
histoires, d'où on revient, qu'est-ce qu'on fait dans la
vie, on devient rapidement le centre d'attention, parce
que ce n'est pas commun », indique Dreyfuss. Gonzalo
a par exemple dû attendre plusieurs heures au milieu de
la nuit à la frontière croate, avec quelques bières et des
bananes pour seul réconfort, pour une question de visa.
Ces histoires de vie forment un « film choral », qui a
bénéficié des conseils de la comédienne Véronique
Côté en début de processus de création. Elles sont
livrées en alternance avec des numéros d'acrobatie, de
jonglerie et de roue Cyr. Le trio a dû trouver sa propre
dynamique, puisque Coloma et Giroux forment déjà un
duo, les LOL Brothers, et Dreyfuss, le plus léger des
trois, a dû s'improviser voltigeur dans les numéros
aériens. Il a fait une mauvaise chute en répétition
samedi, mais n'a, heureusement, rien de cassé. « J'ai 38
ans, un âge avancé pour un acrobate », note-t-il. « Entre
deux eaux parle aussi un peu de ça. »
Dreyfuss a entraîné pendant trois ans l'équipe nationale
suisse de trampoline, puis Charles Thibault, de l'équipe
canadienne. Les dudes seront les 11 et 12 juillet à BaieSaint-Paul, alors que les LOL Brothers seront au
Festival d'été les 13, 14 et 15 juillet. Les prestations
dans la rue, qui sont leur gagne-pain et les font voyager
partout dans le monde, ont nourri la dramaturgie
d’Entre deux eaux qui sera, espèrent-ils, leur manière
de passer à une autre étape et de livrer un discours plus
personnel.
Entre deux eaux de La Barbotte était présenté du 7 au
10 juillet au théâtre Quat'sous.
Photo © Nicola Frank Vachon | Sur la photo : Gonzalo Coloma, Andy Giroux et Philippe Dreyfuss
JOSIANNE DESLOGES est journaliste au quotidien Le Soleil, à Québec. Elle y couvre les arts visuels en plus d’écrire sur
la télé, sur les arts et sur des sujets d’actualité. Elle est également pigiste pour diverses revues culturelles. Optant d’abord
pour une formation multidisciplinaire, elle s’est ensuite spécialisée en critique et en analyse de la représentation.
Page 12
LES 100 HEURES
PAR MAXIME D.-POMERLEAU
Cent heures. Cent heures pour comprendre la nécessité
de créer un savoir et de former un discours critique
autour des arts du cirque. Quatre trop courtes journées,
où je m’étonnais chaque matin du besoin criant dans la
communauté de documenter ses activités ; de créer un
pont entre le monde circassien et le commun des
mortels ; de briser la prison de verre autour de cette
forme d’expression artistique centenaire.
Alors que les rives du fleuve St-Laurent ont vu naître la
troupe la plus prolifique du cirque contemporain, il
n’existe même pas de livre sur l’histoire du cirque au
Québec. Si le théâtre et la danse brillent par la richesse
de leur répertoire, le cirque se place en parent pauvre
des arts vivants. Il est nécessaire d’ouvrir les portes au
public, au-delà de l’enceinte où s’exécutent les
acrobates. Absorber tout cela en cent heures, c’est
beaucoup.
Pour les artistes, cent heures, c’est peu. C’est cent
heures de réflexion, de travail, de sueur,
d’enchantement, pour quelques minutes, parfois
quelques heures ou quelques jours, si on est chanceux,
de rencontres éclair avec le public. Pour l’artiste,
l’instant de performance s’évapore aussi vite qu’une
traînée de poudre de magnésie. Mais pour le journaliste,
le souvenir reste. Les images persistent. La réflexion se
crée et le discours se forge…
Cirque et culture pop
En 2015, deux visions du cirque s’entrechoquent ; celle
du freak show, vestige populaire du cirque classique, et
les images flamboyantes mises de l’avant par le Cirque
du Soleil. Preuve que ces stéréotypes sont bien ancrés
dans la culture pop, on voyait en 2014 le retour de la
foire grotesque dans la quatrième saison de la série
American Horror Story. Un choix télévisé qui provoqua
même le mécontentement de la Clowns of America
International, dénonçant la coulrophobie que le
personnage Twisty suscitait.
Au XIXe siècle, le cirque est associé aux troupes
itinérantes qui s’installent à proximité des villes,
amenant prodiges et curiosités à la foule. Plus que de
simples corps exhibés, le freak show met en scène des
Abstract | 100 HOURS | In 2015, two perceptions of
circus collide: the freak show, a remnant of traditional
circus, and the flamboyant images of Cirque du Soleil.
The first was initiated by Americans in mid-nineteenth
century and prospered until 1940. It’s here we associate
bearded women, Siamese twins, clowns, giants, and
dwarfs, all living in the menagerie and touring with
circus artists.
Closer and more familiar to our era is the specialization
of high-level tricks and prowess. Accomplishing these
technical feats requires hundreds of hours of physical
training: hours of kneading, hurting, and bending
bodies so as to project fantasies of supermen and
superwomen. It is nonetheless this relation to
extraordinary bodies that fascinates the public.
Both concepts refer us to deep human feelings mixing
fear and desire, nightmares and dreams, leading us to
ask: How does the acrobat communicate emotions and
thoughts through his or her circus discipline? For the
audience, does advertising create expectations to see
spectacular bodies at work? At what point did we shift
from the freak body, a condition present from birth, to
the athletic and aesthetic bodies of artists trained for ten
years?
personnages chacun dotés d’une identité propre. Ainsi,
le rôle au sein de la troupe renvoie à un archétype qui
imprègne fortement, même à ce jour, l’imaginaire
collectif. À cette époque, la performance artistique n’est
pas l’attraction première du cirque. L’acrobate présente
son numéro mais il est rarement la vedette de la troupe.
Exposés dans des kiosques encerclant le grand
chapiteau, les phénomènes de foire sont
instrumentalisés pour attirer le public et ensuite inviter
ce dernier à voir le spectacle de cirque. Ce
divertissement représente le premier contact avec des
gens d’origines culturelles différentes, pour la plupart
issus de colonies, et des personnes handicapées. Ce
n’est pas l’opinion publique mais l’autorité médicale
qui critiquera le freak show au début du XXe siècle. La
médicalisation des anomalies propres aux freaks leur
enlève tout mystère et amorce le déclin de ce type de
spectacle dès 1908 jusque dans les années 40. Sans
sujets exotiques à rencontrer, l’intérêt de la population
et des médias se fane.
Page 13
D’autre part, l’avènement de la vidéo, du cinéma et de
la photographie, autrefois plus documentaire, vient
modifier la perception des disciplines circassiennes.
S’immisçant dans les pratiques artistiques à partir des
années 60, ces médiums transforment à jamais le
rapport de l’artiste à son corps. Le corps ne suffit plus
comme vecteur de l’œuvre, l’image s’impose comme
support de la performance. Désormais, il ne sert plus
d’être, il faut aussi paraître. Finalement, avec la
professionnalisation des artistes, à partir des années 80,
le cirque développe nécessairement sa propre norme
corporelle semblable aux corps de certains athlètes
olympiques.
Extreme corpus
L’artiste nous offre son souffle, ses côtes, ses
articulations et ce don de soi revient à chaque
représentation. La quête de la beauté étant assurée par
la danse, on associe davantage le cirque au
spectaculaire. As de la métamorphose, les
contorsionnistes ne cessent d’étonner depuis
l’Antiquité.
Vingt-sept. C’est la moyenne de consultations
annuelles en physiothérapie des élèves de l’École
Nationale du Cirque de Montréal. Cultiver le risque ne
vient pas sans heurt et ils apprennent rapidement à
reconnaître, prévenir et soigner leurs blessures. Trois
heures. C’est le temps moyen quotidien que les
acrobates passent à s’entraîner lorsqu’ils sont en
tournée. Ajoutées à leur performance du soir, ces heures
sont suffisantes pour maintenir leurs acquis musculaires
et leur cardio.
Dès leur entrée, on apprend aux nouveaux artistes du
Cirque du Soleil à se peindre le visage, s’effaçant
derrière le personnage qu’ils incarneront, une fois le
costume enfilé. Ce n’est pas seulement dans le but
avoué de préserver l’apparence de ce dernier au fil des
années. C’est d’abord pour parler un langage universel,
celui des créatures oniriques auxquelles toutes les
cultures peuvent s’identifier. Fort d’un marketing
associant prouesses techniques à des personnages
intemporels, le Cirque du Soleil redéfinit le rêve
moderne depuis les années 90. Propagé par la
mondialisation, ce nouveau modèle de cirque conduit
cependant à un certain conformisme et dissimule cette
réalité que les artistes sont anonymes et
interchangeables dans les grandes compagnies.
On a vu au cours du siècle le cirque changer de forme;
il en est de même pour le corps de l’artiste, élément
central de la performance. Alors que l’on naît freak,
avec un corps « surnaturel », l’artiste doit, quant à lui,
s’entraîner plus de 10 ans pour parvenir à un résultat
athlétique et une esthétique définie. Cela crée-t-il des
attentes, renforcées par la publicité, de voir des corps
prodigieux, ou avons-nous un besoin intrinsèque de les
voir en action ? Au cœur de la quête d’extraordinaire de
l’humain, le corps du circassien est objet de catharsis
pour un public voyeur.
Andréane Leclerc © Nadère arts vivants
Quatre secondes. C’est le temps normal d’une prouesse
en contorsion, entre l’exécution et la réaction.
Cherepaka étale cette prouesse sur une heure. Andréane
Leclerc se révèle au sommet de son échauffement,
qu’elle aura commencé dans sa loge 1 h 30 avant le
début du spectacle.
Intrigant et confrontant, la radicalité de la performance
tient captif le public, empathique envers l’interprète qui
repousse les limites de ses capacités physiques sur
scène. L’effet de surprise désamorcé, le spectateur se
retrouve seul dans ses pensées, face à une vision de luimême, brute et monstrueuse. Une recherche intense de
sens se cache derrière la performance fascinante de
Page 14
Leclerc, puisant dans l’esthétique du risque propre au
cirque nouveau.
Signifiant tortue en russe, on peut voir dans Cherepaka
un clin d’œil à la mère du monde, qui trimballe les
continents sur son dos. Quelque chose d’ancestral se
dégage de la démonstration de l’artiste, une énergie
primitive, une nature profondément humaine qui se
manifeste sous les traits d’un être possédé. Elle affirme
une féminité, étrange et singulière, loin de celle
fantasmée par les hommes sur les corps érotisés des
contorsionnistes.
Agile, Leclerc arrive à isoler les parties de son corps
comme différents segments d’une même phrase, si bien
que l’on oublie qu’ils sont rattachés au tronc. Son
costume qui rappelle à la fois une feuille et une carapace
souligne la corporéité des êtres et les différentes
manières d’appréhender le mouvement.
On peut lui donner moult signification : un insecte qui
mue, cherchant à fendre la peau de ses articulations
pointues, ou encore une guerrière exécutant un rite
tribal avant un affrontement. C’est un voyage
initiatique, auquel on assisterait, celui de la naissance
de son corps, de sa forme archaïque la plus instinctive à
celle pleinement maitrisée, développée et archiconsciente de son environnement et du public qui la fixe
du regard.
Affronter les éléments
L’expérience hautement théâtrale Warm, mise en scène
par David Bobée, met en vedette les acrobates
Colombiens Edward Aleman et Wilmer Marquez, aussi
de la compagnie El Nucleo. Avant de fouler les
planches de l’Espace GO, le duo n’avait fait que 15
représentations du spectacle ensemble.
À peine on pénètre dans la salle que la chaleur et
l’humidité écrasante, dans laquelle on baignera pour la
prochaine heure, nous accablent. Déjà, le quatrième
mur est brisé. Rapidement on se sent oppressé par le
microclimat caniculaire que même la respiration en est
affectée. La performance fait appel à tous les sens; on a
les mains moites, le regard avide, la bouche sèche et on
a vite terminé la bouteille d’eau reçue à l’entrée !
Cette fois-ci, on ne tord pas les corps à l’extrême, on les
soumet plutôt aux paramètres d’un environnement
hostile, exposant ainsi leur puissance et leur
vulnérabilité. La sueur, que l’on essaie habituellement
de masquer, devient ici l’élément sur lequel se construit
la performance et grâce à laquelle on verra la
transformation graduelle des corps du porteur et du
voltigeur.
Les deux hommes alternent suspensions, main à main
et équilibrisme, dans un état de plus en plus difficile,
alors que la sueur ruisselle sur leurs muscles blanchis
de poudre de magnésie. Ils glissent, tombent,
s’étreignent, remontent et glissent encore, dans leur
obstination à exécuter les ordres de Séverine Ragaigne,
sous des conditions de chaleur et de lumière presque
insoutenables. N’étant pas naturel pour l’humain de se
mettre volontairement dans une position si
inconfortable, il devient captivant d’en regarder
d’autres se prêter au jeu. C’est le risque apprivoisé, la
chute calculée ; celle qui effraie et fascine le spectateur.
Warm se traduit par une expérience globale qui va audelà de la prouesse technique et de la performance
scénique. C’est une tendance de plus en plus présente
dans les arts du cirque d’intégrer d’autres disciplines,
qui traditionnellement se mélangeaient peu. Comme
pour la danse et le théâtre, où on retrouve
historiquement des corps plus consensuels, le milieu du
cirque s’ouvre à la diversité des genres et des
représentations.
Diversifier les formes, redéfinir la norme
Dans le but que sa création représente une diversité de
citoyens, Anthony Venisse, concepteur des Minutes
Complètement Cirque, a invité 20 Montréalais à
participer aux spectacles présentés de la dernière
édition de MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE.
Les Minutes et Duels se sont donc construits autour du
chœur citoyen et des artistes minutiens et ne sont pas le
fruit d’une démarche imposée. 100 heures. 10 jours en
studio. C’est le temps dont la soixantaine d’interprètes
ont bénéficié pour répéter le spectacle, présenté 20 fois
au cours du festival.
Là où, généralement, on voit des limites, les circassiens
voient des opportunités. Si le travail d’inclure une
participante en fauteuil roulant s’est avéré presque
banal pour les créateurs, la proposition pouvait être
étonnante pour l’assistance, considérant la faible
présence de personnes handicapées dans l’espace
public et dans la sphère culturelle, particulièrement
dans les arts performatifs.
Au même titre qu’un numéro de chaises
conventionnelles, le numéro présenté à Duels ne
pourrait avoir lieu sans le fauteuil roulant. Prenant
appui sur des cannes fixées au fauteuil, l’équilibriste
s’exécute juché sur celui-ci, ou encore il s’adosse contre
les jambes de la participante pour effectuer une
manœuvre avec un autre acrobate. Les figures créées ne
peuvent exister que par la combinaison des corps des
artistes avec l’aide à la mobilité motorisée de la jeune
Page 15
femme. À aucun moment on ne sent l’intégration du
fauteuil forcée, signe qu’au-delà de la participation
citoyenne, on retient surtout la valeur artistique du
tableau. Cela amène le public à percevoir le fauteuil
roulant comme un support de création plutôt qu’un
objet fonctionnel du quotidien.
L’une des forces du cirque, si ce n’est de déconstruire
littéralement le corps, c’est du moins de déconstruire
son image…
Avec la transversalité des arts vivants qui est de plus en
plus forte, le cirque évolue, adoptant les tendances dans
son besoin d’innovation, de discussion et
d’intervention. La multidisciplinarité des artistes et la
redéfinition des frontières artistiques nous amènent à
poser certaines questions : Après combien de mots a-ton fait une pièce de théâtre ? Combien de minutes de
mouvement cela prend-il pour figurer dans un festival
de danse ? Combien de main à main faut-il pour créer
un spectacle de cirque ?
Alors que les œuvres d’art visuel et sonores sont
conçues à l’épreuve du temps, le caractère éphémère
des arts vivants met le cirque dans une case à part. Le
numéro du trapéziste ou de la contorsionniste crée ce
lien entre le passé et le futur, un moment
d’émerveillement à embrasser.
Paradoxal, mouvant, universel, le cirque restera
toujours un formidable élément pour créer des ponts
entre les communautés. Et au cœur de l’aventure, nous
trouverons toujours l’être humain, une vieille âme qui
s’entêtera à monter sur des bâtons pour se rapprocher
un peu plus des Dieux.
Duels © Alexandre Galliez
Artiste, journaliste pigiste et animatrice culturelle, MAXIME D.-POMERLEAU couvre depuis 2007 la scène musicale
indépendante et les arts de la scène. Soucieuse d’apporter un angle sociologique à ses projets, elle inscrit son travail
dans une démarche de médiation culturelle et considère l’art comme un espace de création, de réflexion et d’éducation.
Liens : http://about.me/mllemax | Magazine web : http://mattv.ca | Autre média : http://amitele.ca
Page 16
THE MANIPULATED BODY
PUPPETRY AND OTHER IMPERATIVES IN CONTEMPORARY CIRCUS
BY REBECCA GALLOWAY
Puppetry has existed for thousands of years, from
shamanic effigies and fertility rituals in Africa to the
“Chinese Shadows” of France, through to British icons
Punch & Judy, subversive political puppetry of the
1970s, the Muppets, Howdy Doody, Team America and
the smash-hit Broadway production, The Lion King.
The common thread throughout the history of puppetry
is the ability to put life into inanimate objects. However,
the puppet/puppeteer relationship is so deeply ingrained
in our collective cultural consciousness that it is very
easy to recognize the same dynamic even when there is
no actual puppet present. This concept is nothing new;
in fact an ancient Indian treatise on drama written circa
200 BC refers to a director of live theatre as the “stringholder.” Consider also terms like “puppet state” or
“puppet monarch” and their place in this idea.
In this article, I will talk about three contemporary
circus shows presented within Montréal Completement
Cirque 2015 – Warm by David Bobée of Centre
Dramatique National de Haute-Normandie, Le Pianiste
by Thomas Monckton and Circo Aereo, and Duels by
Anthony Venisse. All three go beyond traditional
puppetry and use few (if any) apparatus to show the
sense of imperative typically assigned to the
puppet/puppeteer relationship.
I propose that we look at these works through a
“puppetry” lens, compare with similar works
throughout the history of circus/physical theatre/dance,
and discover another layer of meaning.
Bodies and Power
In the dance world, the idea of manipulation and
surrender provides the core of most contact
improvisation
techniques,
and
contemporary
choreography will often feature dancers physically
maneuvering other dancer's bodies in the manner of life
sized puppets.
Crystal Pite went a step further with her acclaimed work
Dark Matters, a physical exploration of puppetry and
power that goes mind-bendingly meta in its scope. It's
Résumé | LE CORPS MANIPULÉ | À partir d’un large
éventail d’exemples, cet article, Le corps manipulé : la
marionnette et autres impératifs du cirque
contemporain, explore les tensions entre le corps, son
langage et sa puissance, qui utilise la marionnette
comme un filtre culturel à travers lequel on voit 3
productions présentées pendant MONTRÉAL
COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE 2015 : Warm de David
Bobée du Centre Dramatique National de HauteNormandie, Le Pianiste de Thomas Monckton et Circo
Aereo, ainsi que Duels d’Anthony Venisse, Ces
spectacles, sont mis en perspective avec des
productions historiques et contemporaines en arts de la
marionnette et, bien qu’ils dépassent la marionnette
traditionnelle, les appareils utilisés illustrent la
dynamique de pouvoir typique entre le marionnettiste et
la marionnette, faisant ressortir les impératifs
physiques. Que se passe-t-il si nous substituons à la
marionnette les corps d’acrobates ?
quite a different concept to that of, say, the ballet
Petrushka by Mikhail Fokine, or Petipa's Coppelia; in
both of these, the dancers are merely acting as puppets
within a well-established cadre. The idea is much more
subtle and compelling when you remove any overt
references to a marionette narrative.
Sometimes we see a sense of struggle between the
puppeteer and puppet. George Bernard Shaw's play
Pygmalion, or the Broadway/film version My Fair Lady
is a good example of this, to the extent that the original
Broadway poster depicts the main characters Eliza
Doolittle and Henry Higgins hooked up to strings like
marionettes, ultimately controlled by God. The film
Being John Malkovich (directed by Spike Jonze with
puppetry by Phillip Huber) is also worthy of exploration
here. In the film, Craig Schwartz discovers a portal that
allows him to "be" John Malkovich for 15 minutes, thus
opening a "metaphysical can of worms." Playing out an
intricate relationship between desire and possession,
Being John Malkovich shows us many examples of
subject/object string-pulling, and raises the question of
whether the puppet realizes that he is being
manipulated. What is the difference between a puppet
and a person? The answer, perhaps, is simply control.
Page 17
Heinrich von Kleist's (long-ignored) 1810 essay “On
the Marionette Theatre” summed up this dichotomy
very specifically as “the marionette and… the god” and
Edward
Gordon
Craig's
concept
of
the
"übermarionette"— in which the director treats the
actors like objects — has historically been hugely
influential on contemporary object theatre and physical
theatre.
two walls of enormous stage lamps installed on either
side of the space, providing a framework (both
physically and conceptually) to the piece.
During the 40 minute performance, the spotlights
switch on, producing an unbearable light and an
oppressive heat. This blinding structure is extended by
a back wall comprised entirely of mirrors, which begin
to pulsate and shimmer with heat and movement as the
piece goes on. After 10 minutes, the temperature
reaches 45ºC. The acrobats' clothes are soaked. The
heat leads to failures, shaking, “mistakes” that become
a part of the very fabric of the choreography.
The driving force of this seemingly thankless task is the
monologue that threads its way insistently through the
performance, and its delivery by actress Séverine
Ragaigne. The words give impetus to the bodies and
forces the audience to project a homo-erotic fantasy
onto an otherwise uneventful (albeit difficult and
sweaty) acrobatic routine. Thus the actress has agency
over both the acrobats and the audience; we are in her
world, and her fantasy.
She says:
In my dream the boys come…
Here there are two of them…
They have the right bodies…
wearing
Almost nothing really…
attractive and rather
different
The boys are not real…
Their bodies, their dicks
are hard against me, almost too perfect, I am liquid.
The monologue takes on a hard-edged glint. Says the
director, David Bobée: “There is something cruel in the
way that she pushes them for her own pleasure.”
I say come
In this heat try again:
I-you-he, tangled
There: Don't move
DO NOT MOVE
My Fair Lady - abel_Poster
An example of the puppetry power dynamic from the
contemporary circus sphere is Warm, which premiered
in 2008 and was presented at MONTRÉAL
COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE 2015. A co-creation of
French director David Bobée and writer Ronan
Cheneau, Warm's current iteration features the talented
Colombian hand-to-hand acrobats Edward Aleman and
Wilmer Marquez. Typically installed in a black box
theatre, the dominant element of Warm's set design is
And now, it is me who begins, I am saying: me who
gives the orders now, me who moves, who gives the
orders, I say I say I am burning you now… FUCK DO
IT HARDER, more skin… I order it, I order, more I
order it: brutes now, you are brutes, you're brutes, you
hear me animals, dogs, you're dogs, don't look at me I
say: now, I forbid it… hold on and DO NOT LET GO
It's a punishing 40 minutes for the acrobats, tracing a
physical path from warm-up to complete exhaustion.
The heat becomes an antagonist of sorts and the sweat
Page 18
– arch enemy of the acrobat – is, as Bobée puts it, an
“acrobatic prop”. Their bodies become slick and
slippery, which makes a porté impossible to do. And
yet the vocal demands continue and the acrobats seem
powerless to stop. From time to time they look at the
actress, silently asking for a release that is not granted
until the two are on the verge of total collapse.
Edward Aleman dans Warm @SophieColleu
Interestingly, Warm is always performed in the
language of the host country, usually by a local actress.
This leaves zero ambiguity of language or accent so the
imperative becomes more direct and powerful. It has
been performed in German, Indonesian, English,
French, and will shortly be performed in Russia for the
first time.
This idea of the vocal imperative, a puppet master who
uses the voice exclusively as a directive force is echoed
in Duels, a site-specific outdoor performance
commissioned by MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT
CiRQUE for the 2015 festival. In this case, however,
the mechanics of the imperative are hidden from the
audience, giving the impression of a army of performers
with a hive-mind and impeccable timing. In reality, the
director Anthony Venisse speaks to the performers,
giving orders through small ear pieces: “Look North.
Freeze. Shut down.” The audience is none the wiser,
and simply see the seamless effect.
Puppetry of the self
So we've looked at the puppeteer/puppet relationship
and how that plays out between live performers. But
there is also what I will call “puppetry of the self” – the
puppeteer using their own body parts to depict fully
formed characters and their narratives and actions. It's
an old craft that is currently enjoying a renaissance in
contemporary theatre and circus. The most common
version of this is hand puppetry, but we can also see
arms, legs, chins and even genitalia stand in for
marionettes to equally impressive effect.
The famous mime Yves Joly enjoyed much success
with a piece in which one gloved hand removed a series
of gloves from the other, until, ultimately, both were
completely naked. The Argentinian puppeteer Mane
Bernardo performed a similar act in the early 90s, and
recent French production Kiss & Cry created an entire
world in miniature, populated by human hands dancing,
thinking, even performing trapeze acts. Australians
Simon Morley and David Friend take this idea to its
zenith (or nadir?) with their show Puppetry of the Penis,
which, as you might imagine, features theatrical
contortion of the male genitalia to form little characters
like a windsurfer, a woman and the Loch Ness Monster.
In Montréal, the cultural juggernaut that is Cirque du
Soleil has also dabbled with this small scale art form.
Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities (2014), directed by
Michel Laprise featured a hand puppet scene that was
then projected onto a giant screen at the back, attempted
to bring this method of intimate storytelling to a big top
scale. The performers presented a story of a person who
breakdances, swims, and later falls in love, using their
hands as puppets dressed up in miniature shoes, hats
etc.
As Eileen Blumenthal explains in Puppetry: A World
History: “The hand is the most agile part of the human
body and puppetry characters can live on a single
finger. Some of the most admired works of Sergei
Obrztsov and the American puppet artist Robert Anton
used one-finger actors. Two finger characters, common
in some Inuit traditions, have a very different body
architecture and range of movement.”
Le Pianiste is a charming solo comic contemporary
circus piece created by Paris-based New Zealander
Thomas Monckton for Circo Aereo in Finland in 2013,
and
presented
within
MONTRÉAL
COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE 2015. A particularly
memorable sequence in Le Pianiste features
Monckton's hands depicting the life cycle of a couple;
first the competition, then the interaction, the attraction,
the fornication, the procreation and finally, the slow and
aching demise. It is touching, intimate and surprisingly
“real” considering the mechanics are out there for the
audience to see.
Monckton also used the cloth that covers the piano,
climbing right underneath the cover as it lay atop the
grand piano. From there, he creates an elaborate brawl
between two contenders (using his knees and fists under
the cloth). He reduces the animation of his characters
down to the broadest strokes, whilst making their
interaction – and inherent humanity – unmistakable.
Page 19
In every puppetry performance (or “puppetry”
performance that may just as readily be pigeon-holed as
physical theatre or contemporary dance) there is a codependence between the subject and object. Each needs
the other to communicate with the audience and portray
certain emotions or narratives. Just about anything can
be cast as a puppet in the right situation; whether the
puppet-master employs a marionette, a found object,
another person or their own body parts hardly seems to
matter. All three examples from MONTRÉAL
COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE; Warm, Duels and Le
Pianiste go beyond traditional puppetry and use few (if
any) apparatus to depict the sense of imperative and the
power dynamic typically assigned to the
puppet/puppeteer relationship. After all, puppetry is all
about telling a story, drawing together themes or
inciting a particular reaction from the audience – the
apparatus itself is merely the end.
Endnotes
Colette Conroy, Theatre & the Body, Palgrave
MacMillan 2009
John Bell, Puppets, Masks & Performing Objects, MIT
Press 1999
Eileen Blumenthal, Puppetry: A World History,
Abrams 2005
REBECCA GALLOWAY has worked in the arts/design/culture sector for over 12 years, for organizations including the
New Zealand School of Dance (Wellington), Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival (Massachussetts), and Harbourfront
Centre (Toronto). She is currently Communications Manager at information design studio FFunction in Montreal and
maintains a freelance writing practice critiquing dance for a variety of online journals.
You can follow her on Twitter: @rtgalloway
Page 20
WARM: FAILURE AND THE THEATRICAL
CONSTRUCTION OF RISK IN CIRCUS PERFORMANCE
BY ROY GOMEZ CRUZ
Warm was about to begin. The air inside the theater felt
heavy and suffocating. As she entered the stage, one
hundred and ten powerful spotlights shimmered at her
presence. Brightening from the sides, these
incandescent lights raised the temperature up some
more. She wandered around the stage. As the backdrop,
a set of mirrors duplicated her image symmetrically
while a low-pitched sound was quivering them. Onto
these same mirrors, audience members were faced with
their own reflection, shaking tremulously. Inevitably,
they watched themselves gazing her. Once she has
reached a microphone stand, her voiced began flooding
the theater with sexual innuendos. When two male
acrobats appeared, the scene was already pregnant with
the incipient erotic fantasies that she verbally
elaborated again and again to exhaustion. At this
moment, Warm revealed all the pieces of a theatrical
device that works to unveil the sensuality ingrained in
circus disciplines, fueled by physical encounters and an
insatiable hunger for athletic prowess. Craftily, this
device exposed the grueling labor of the acrobat body
by simultaneously seducing the audience with the sultry
trepidation of sexual taboos and the sweating of heated
emotions.
For the 2015 MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT
CiRQUE Festival, Warm featured Colombian acrobats
Edward Aleman and Wilmer Marquez performing a
hand-to-hand act, side-by-side with French actress
Séverine Ragaigne who delivered an erotic monologue
written by playwright Ronan Chéneau. Theater director
David Bobée conceived Warm in 2008, inspired by the
sensuality that circus disciplines irradiate from a
spectatorship position. In an interview, he recounted
feeling enthralled by the warming up routine of the
hand-to-hand duo formed by Alexandre Fray and
Frédéric Arsenault that constituted the first cast of
Warm, alongside with actress Virginie Vaillant. Just the
sight of two men, supporting one another physically,
brought to David Bobée the realization that circus
disciplines inevitably provoke a set of surplus meanings
that often fall under the realms of sensuality and
eroticism. Then, he embarked on a theatrical
exploration of hand-to-hand acrobatics to examine how
Résumé | WARM : L’ÉCHEC ET LA CONSTRUCTION
THÉÂTRALE DU RISQUE AU CIRQUE | Cet article, en
lien avec la résidence d’écriture Circus Stories, Le
cirque vu par…, présentée par En Piste, procède à
l’analyse de Warm, une production en cirque
contemporain de David Bobée présentée pendant la 6e
édition du festival MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT
CiRQUE. Ces mécanismes deviennent des outils
dramatiques efficaces qui élargissent le potentiel du
vocabulaire artistique de la technique acrobatique, qui
contestent l’illusion de l’acrobate surhumain et créent
de nouvelles manières d’intégrer le public dans la
performance.
Dans un spectacle de cirque tout se déroule à haute
vitesse. Les acrobates effectuent leurs prouesses au sol
ou haut dans les airs, plient et étirent leurs corps, le tout
en un battement de cil. Ce sont ces quelques secondes
qui ont historiquement défini l’essence du cirque.
Conventionnellement, les numéros de cirque sont
structurés autour de la prouesse physique, à la fois dans
la composition et l’interconnexion des actes. Les
numéros de cirque débutent généralement avec une
habileté acrobatique, qui développera risques et
difficultés jusqu’à l’atteinte d’une prouesse
exceptionnelle, qui devient le réel protagoniste.
Lorsque les acrobates terminent leur numéro, saluent la
foule et quittent la scène, une aura surhumaine demeure.
Warm est une production de cirque contemporain créé
par David Bobée qui défie l’illusion de l’acrobate
surhumain et le règne de la prouesse circassienne. En
utilisant la sensualité et l’homo-érotisme comme des
accessoires scéniques, Warm séduit le public et l’amène
à expérimenter la fragilité, les illusions et la
vulnérabilité du cirque. Cet article tente de déconstruire
les mécanismes à travers lesquels Warm démystifie
l’acrobate surhumain, en présentant une performance
fascinante qui expose sensuellement la construction
théâtrale du risque dans un spectacle de cirque.
acrobatic technique by itself connotes eroticism,
through which mechanisms and under which
circumstances. Warm is the result of this exploration.
Page 21
Hand-to-hand, sensuality and homoeroticism
Among circus disciplines, hand-to-hand seems to
perfectly serve Bobée’s sensual investigation of circus
techniques as it presents two bodies grappling together
to lift and support each other against the choreographies
of ordinary life. By using potent lamps at the sides of
the stage, Bobée’s Warm brings to light every detail of
a male-to-male physical contact, stimulating the
audience to cast metaphors of intimacy, and sexual
desire onto them. And yet, the construction of this
potential homoeroticism is complicated by the role that
actress Ragaigne plays in it. During the performance,
she seemed to claim ownership for these male bodies as
properties of her erotic fantasy, inviting the audience to
engage with the scene from her position. However, her
erotic monologue at moments fell short and plain in
comparison to the tantalizing physicality that unraveled
in sweat at center stage. Additionally, her body mostly
remained fixed at one side of the stage, making her
presence spectral and disembodied, almost intrusive.
calibrated by her intoxicating sexual monologue, which
either reasserts heterosexuality or repositions the male
duo within fluid understandings of sexuality. In reality,
acrobats Aleman and Marquez are not aiming to be
sexual. They are just reenacting the acrobatic language
they have crafted along more than seventeen years of
working together. While they engage with tender
caresses here and there in their act, they do not overstep
sexual boundaries. Their gaze does not convey lust.
Their contact is never fully sexual. Rather, Warm
operates as its mirrors at the back, inviting the audience
to cast their own desires for sensuality or
homoeroticism upon the bodies onstage.
The performance works with different tempos. Twice
during the performance, the actress increases the
intensity of her voice inflections until she is bluntly
screaming scenes of sexual intercourse. The sound turns
into a dissonant noise in response to her ostensible
orgasm. The mirrors vibrate uncontrollably, blurring
their capacity for producing reflections. At these
moments, the lights also brighten at its fullest. With the
heat irradiating from them, which warm the stage up to
45 degrees Celsius, the acrobats sweat profusely. The
combination of bright lights, turbulent sounds and
sweat magnifies the voluptuousness of the acrobatic act.
More importantly, it also increases the apparent risk of
hand-to-hand feats.
As the stage is soaked with bright sweat, the acrobatic
feats became too cumbersome, unruly and indomitable.
The base acrobat began to fail in holding and catching
the flyer. The flyer began to miss his grip, falling loudly
onto the floor. Hand-balancing postures turned into
painful and almost impossible tasks. As hard as they
tried it, the theatrical stage pushed them to failure.
Simultaneously, the actress demanded uninterrupted
performance. In doing so, she seem to embody the
circus' hunger for transcending the limits of the human
body. While the erotic premise of the performance
remained in flux, opening space to find either
homoerotic or heterosexual sources for pleasure, the
perception of physical risk was masterfully constructed,
entangling failure with eroticism. In this way, David
Bobée constructed a powerful theatrical device that
allows glimpsing the primal mechanisms of the circus
machine.
Breaking up technique, exploring failure
Warm | Edward Aleman Wilmer Marquez © Sophie Calleu
The fascinating homoeroticism germinating onstage,
never fully grows into sexual desire. The intimacy that
transpires from the performers to the audience is always
Warm performs many feats of risk, some at the hands
of the skilled acrobatic duo, but many others executed
by the theatrical device itself. Plausibly, Warm
provokes the audience to experience the toll of
acrobatic feats in the body. It brings us closer to the
circus machinery, allowing the audience to experience
Page 22
the performance with their senses. On the edge of my
seat in the first row, I clenched my fists several times
when the flyer in front of me lost his balance and fell
off. I tensed the hamstrings. I shrugged my shoulders.
Drops of sweat trickled down my back, drenching my
clothes completely, and making me sensitive to the
contact of fabric with my skin. I also felt like the humid
haze suffocating the theater functioned as a connective
membrane interlacing us, and also invading our bodies.
Warm requires labor, either to enjoy its sensuality, or to
feel aversion for its exhibition of risk.
Warm can be best described as a circus laboratory in
which dramaturgical elements serve as props through
which the bodily language of acrobatics finds new
expressions. This might be one of David Bobée’s most
powerful tricks as a contemporary circus director. He
challenges conventional codes of circus performance.
Instead of asking acrobats to hide the pain or the great
efforts required to perform acrobatic feats, Warm
highlights them. Additionally, the performance begins
with a warming-up routine, usually reserved to the
privacy of backstage and, in the last five minutes, it
shows the aftermath of acrobatic performance when
bodies are depleted, debilitated, and sweltering. In this
way, Warm questions the spectatorship contract,
historically established by the circus, in which risk is
displayed as long as acrobats are perceived as
superhuman. The perception of potential injuries or
fatalities seem to break this contract.
For the last act, after she has reached a second orgasm,
the lights and sound begin to fade. At this moment, the
acrobats have failed countless times. They are incapable
of performing any other prowess. Their acrobatic skills
now are failing them. Their technique abandons them.
The time for tricks is over. Ensnared into each other at
a corner of the stage, they look fragile. Breathing
heavily, they hold onto each other just to stand still.
Drop-by-drop, their strength has been drained. In the
aftermath of an acrobatic apotheosis, she now softens
and sweetens her words, but the acrobats ran away from
her. In a corner, they look afraid and upon physical
collapse. Stunningly, the end leaves us far away from
the grand magnificence of the circus. Instead, the
prowess here is the revelation of the vulnerable
condition of the circus acrobat.
For Edward Aleman, the flyer in the hand-to-hand duo,
this is the harder scene in the performance. It lasts five
minutes, but for him “feels like five hours”. In an
interview, Aleman reflected that when techniques fails
and deteriorates it, a deeper truth is potentially revealed.
For him, technical training allows acrobats to perform
extraordinary feats of strength, balance, or endurance.
Indeed, technique allows humans to show their capacity
for moments of perfection. However, this is not the
entire truth. Aleman argued that the last scene also
shows what they are: just two broken men, “turned into
shit”. In reality, they are two persons resisting and
enduring together the hardships of circus life. Coming
from very humble origins in Colombia, this is part of
the truth. They have endured in an extenuating struggle
to transform their lives through acrobatics. For Aleman,
the scene is an act of resistance. Equally, being a circus
artist is a never-ending act of resistance… Warms
succeeds in poetically portraying this truth. Aleman
stated, “we all can do extraordinary things right? But
eventually, you will miss and fail. The question is what
do you do next? How will you resist?”
Conclusion
In Warm, the sexuality constructed onstage is
complicated, possibly disengaging. The woman onstage
seems to occupy a conflicting and coercive role tinged
with emotional outbursts. Her body is mainly pushed to
a corner. It is also a fact that a male has written the
monologue she performs, raising questions about the
representation of female sexuality onstage. Beyond this
discrepancies, Warm is more than the sum of its part.
As a theatrical device, it looks directly at the
mechanisms at the core of the circus machine, where
risk is ensnared with sensuality and eroticism. In this
sense, Warm performs a sort of meta-circus that
engages with circus disciplines to productively
deconstruct their technicality. By pushing the acrobats
to fail, Warm fractures the mechanisms of the circus
spectacle, opening a gap through which more honest
truths might emerge, for example, the strenuous labor
implied in lifting up and supporting one another under
the most adverse circumstances
ROY GOMEZ CRUZ is a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at Northwestern University and holds a Master in
Communication of Science and Culture. His research examines the relationship between flexible labor and transnational
communities within contemporary circus industries in North America. He is interested in the transformative potential
of circus performance to challenge gender binaries, national identifications and neoliberalism.
Page 23
CIRCUS CITY
BY STEPHEN HUNT
No stars. No words. No nations.
Just bodies in motion, devising, and revising a language
that has been around, in various guises and disguises,
for centuries now - the language of the circus. That said,
if the body speaks a language all its own, what language
was Cherepaka delivered in? That was the name of one
of the shows featured at the 2015 MONTRÉAL
COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE, a festival of circus arts.
Cherepaka was created and performed by Andreane
Leclerc, a graduate of the National Circus School. It
was one part performance art, one part art installation
and the rest a pretzel-logic of twisted contortions that
was inspired in part by the anguished art of Francis
Bacon, no less.
That was one of a half dozen vivid examples of nouveau
cirque that were showcased as part of a residency for 10
cultural journalists, sponsored by En Piste, Canada’s
circus arts national network, which immersed us in
every conceivable aspect of the circus arts (except
performing them) for four days in July.
The residency included presentations from the National
Circus School, Cirque du Soleil, Cirque Eloize, Cirque
Alfonse, TOHU, as well as a half dozen different circus
artists and directors who spent time with us, translating
what they do into words. There was Thomas Monckton,
a New Zealand clown who lives in Paris, and was
funded by the Finnish government to create Le Pianiste,
an hour-long virtuoso piece of clown comedy he
performed to an enthralled full house at the Centaur
Theatre, about a pianist enduring the performance of
every pianist’s worst nightmares - the one where
everything that can possibly go wrong prior to
beginning the performance does. Monckton studied at
Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq in Paris,
channelling silent movie stars such as Buster Keaton
and Charlie Chaplin in Le Pianiste - along with more
than a little Marceau Marceau, who we discovered he
saw perform as a teenager growing up in New Zealand.
Résumé | VILLE DE CIRQUE | Après avoir participé à
une résidence de quatre jours avec neuf autres
journalistes nord-américains pendant MONTRÉAL
COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE 2015, le journaliste
Stephen Hunt explore l’évolution et la croissance de
Montréal comme ville de cirque (pôle de cirque en
Amérique). Le Cirque du Soleil a joué le rôle de
premier plan dans la croissance de cet art depuis les
trois dernières décennies, que ce soit en engageant des
diplômés de l’École nationale de cirque, située à
proximité du siège social de l’entreprise dans le quartier
St-Michel, ou en employant des centaines d’artistes de
toutes les disciplines pour contribuer à la création de ses
populaires spectacles. Hunt écrit à propos de quelquesuns des spectacles présentés pendant le festival
MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE 2015 :
BARBU, Beyond, Cherepaka, Duels, Les Minutes
complètement cirque, Warm et Le Pianiste, de même
que sur la TOHU, un lieu dédié au cirque, et le rôle que
cette institution joue dans la communauté de St-Michel.
paper while Kim Carnes sang Total Eclipse of the Heart.
The consensus from the critics was that Beyond was not
one of Circa’s strongest efforts, that its use of animal
costumes felt a bit dated and didn’t really achieve what
they set out to. Perhaps - but there was also humour,
heart and gender-bending that made Beyond a
compelling piece to watch.
There were the performers from C!RCA, a popular
Australian circus act who opened the festival with
Beyond, an eccentric bit of circus that featured strong
women, animal heads, music by legends such as Frank
Sinatra and Nat King Cole - alongside one unforgettable
routine, featuring a guy balancing a single sheet of
Page 24
There was Barbu foire electro trad cabaret, performed
by a posse of bearded men (and a few strong women)
from Cirque Alfonse, a Quebec independent circus
company who turned Olympia into a cabaret of circus
strongman, including a tall, bald, menacing mentallist
named Loukas who did one routine that consisted of a
hamster crawling across his body. They were
accompanied by a live band featuring a trombone
playing female drummer, who performed a selection of
tunes that ranged from jazz to rock and roll. That surreal
imagery was juxtaposed against more traditional circus
routines that included bearded guys rollerblading across
the stage, a ping pong ball spitting contest, hula
hooping, and beer keg tossing - all of it unfolding on a
thrust stage, in front of a cabaret audience of around
300, who hooted and hollered wildly.
Both Beyond and Barbu played with notions of gender
that circus has long embraced - strong men, beautiful,
vulnerable women - that can make watching a lot of
traditional circus feel like archival footage from some
other century.
(Oddly enough, however, when we interviewed Circus
Alfonse founder Antoine Carabinier-Lépine and
BARBU director Alain Francoeur, they denied that
BARBU plays with gender roles - as if to do so would
violate some unspoken code of the circus. But they do
it anyway, in the show, which was full of hammy, selfconscious deconstruction of traditional circus at the
same time it was a lively embrace of it).
I guess it did, a little bit - it made the experience that
much more extreme.
Despite the repetitive, intrusive text, there was
something about the performance of the two acrobats in
Warm (Columbians Edward Aleman and Wilmer
Marquez-Porteur) that was utterly compelling. (Maybe
it was partly due to the fact that handsome Aleman was
described by one of my colleagues as “perfection on a
stick.”).
When not performing in one of Montreal’s first rate
venues such as TOHU, the Olympia, the Centaur
Theatre or Espace GO, we also got a taste of outdoor
circus with Les Minutes and Duels - nouveau spectacle
en plein air. Both of these performances took place in a
downtown park, featuring aerial acrobats and
interactive street circus in a setting that included a
ripline that carried performers over top of the thousands
of people who gathered in the park to watch the free
performance.
It all culminated in Duels, which featured acrobats and
a wash of red umbrellas that gave the whole scene a
somewhat unreal feeling of being a 19th century
Impressionist painting come to life.
There was Warm, a French piece of theatre/circus
performed in a blazing hot theatre - 65 degrees onstage,
45 in the audience - featuring the eroticization of a pair
of acrobats warming up for an (unseen) performance,
while a woman reads an erotic poem in conjunction
with their warmup. Warm was somewhat confounding,
in its blend of circus arts and theatrical text - all piled
atop a site specific gimmick of having the heat turned
up to dangerous levels onstage.
“I want to remember the faces of the acrobats,” said
Warm director David Bobee.
“I want to be connected to with the humanity of these
people. The vocabulary,” he said, “is quite similar in
circus and politics.
“They are trying to fight against laws,” he added,
“against physical impossibilities.”
While I’m all for text when it comes to theatre, this
particular text didn’t seem to add anything to the show,
and after a while, just seemed repetitive.
And did it really add anything to the experience to have
the theatre turned up to Australian outback style
temperatures?
Duels | Photo © Andrew Miller
Page 25
We didn’t get to experience the entirety of Les Minutes
- Beyond ran long - but the visual spectacle of Duels,
unfolding on a warm, breezy July Montreal night in
front of several thousand adoring audience members,
more than made up for what we missed.
It was a fascinating, overwhelming, immersive
experience into the world of circus - and all we had to
do was try to absorb it all.
Imagine performing it.
That was my feeling, after a quartet of days that not only
gave us a brief, but comprehensive briefing on the
historical roots of circus arts, but also, at the same time,
took us all on a guided tour of the evolution of Montreal
into what it is now - a true circus city.
That quickly became apparent on Day One, when we
rode the subway from our Old Montreal hotel, up to a
poor neighborhood that has been transformed by having
the circus come to town - and stay.
That’s Saint-Michel, where Cirque du Soleil has
constructed its world headquarters. It’s a poor,
ethnically diverse neighbourhood populated by a large
number of immigrants and students from nearby
University of Montreal - one speaker told us it was one
of the 20 poorest neighborhoods in North America,
including Mexico - that included, for many years, a
massive landfill.
du Soleil, Cirque Eloize and Seven Fingers of the Hand,
the other two major circus players in the city - as well
as circuses in places like Switzerland, Germany, and
France.
“Demand is high for those kinds of artists,” said
Rousseau, “and demand is international.
“They work not only in Montreal,” he adds, “but around
the world.”
Across the street, there was also TOHU, a gorgeous,
authentic in-the-round circus venue that can seat as
many as 1200 people.
Not only is it an excellent place to watch circus - we
saw Beyond performed there to open the festival July 2
- but there is an impressive collection of circus
memoribilia and posters that give it as much historical
value as it does its present-day role as a premiere venue
for contemporary circus art.
And while the venue is circus-centric much the way
Jarry Park, not far away, was once baseball-centric
when the beloved Expos made Montreal a baseball
town, it’s also very much a part of the Saint-Michel
community.
When it’s not hosting circus events, the venue is used
for corporate ones, and also community ones - that’s
made possible because $1 from every ticket sold during
the festival goes into a fund that is used to provide the
space for community use.
Now, the landfill is in the process of being transformed
into a park that will sit near Cirque headquarters, which
features a large clown shoe sculpture outside the
building, next to a corporate garden that grows
zucchini.
It’s one of only three circus-only venues in North
America - the other two are Cirque-owned venues in
Las Vegas and Orlando - giving Montreal yet another
built-in claim to being the first city of circus in North
America.
Nearby is the National Circus School, an institution
founded in 1981in downtown Montreal, before moving
to its current Saint-Michel headquarters in 20003.
Taken together as a community, the overall impression
of the neighborhood was one of a city that’s been
fundamentally altered by one of the oldest, most
beloved - and commercially successful - performing
arts ever devised.
It’s a hub that attracts aspiring young circus artists from
across North America and around the world who move
to Montreal in order to learn circus the way young
artists move to New York to study at Julliard - it
provides an academic environment that offers access to
amazing professional opportunities.
At the National Circus School, students learn a
combination of academic studies mixed in with being
educated in the essentials of the circus life, including
what communications director Christophe Rousseau
describes as “versatility in all disciplines.” That
includes floor acrobatics, aerial acrobatics, clowning,
balancing, and juggling.
According to Rousseau, the placement rate for circus
school graduates is a staggering 95% - including Cirque
It’s also a performing art that’s accessible to
participants from every education and income level.
More than one artist we spoke to said that learning
circus art bestowed them with a daily discipline and
attention to detail that the rest of their lives lacked particularly for boys.
It reminded me of the way in which boxing clubs and/or
martial arts teaches kids those things in poor
neighborhoods in the U.S. and Mexico, but without the
hand-to-hand combat and threat of neurological
damage that those sports present.
And then there were the performances, demonstrating among other things - that circus art is a whole lot more
Page 26
diverse than the Vegas-friendly razzle dazzle of most
Cirque du Soleil shows.
Put into the hands of an emerging generation of new
circus artists, MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT
CiRQUE demonstrated a range of artists creating circus
art that’s more intimate, funnier, sometimes more
purely circus, and at other times, a wildly inventive
blend of circus arts, theatre and multi-media spectacle
that combines all of Montreal’s finest artistic qualities.
What MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE,
now in its sixth year, brings to the party that is Montreal
in July (running alongside the Jazz Festival now, and
Just for Laughs, in addition to Comiccon and a few
other festivals), is a broad survey of where circus arts
are at now.
Our moderator throughout the residency, French
journalist Johann Floch, had an endearing habit of
beginning each session by asking us to boil down our
comments on a show we’d seen the previous night into
a single word.
If I had to use a single word to describe the state of
circus arts in the 21st century, it would be the same word
that circus performers frequently use to articulate their
ultimate goal: prouesse, or prowesse.
There’s still plenty of that on display in circus arts,
which contemporary artists are combining with 21st
century sensibilities to produce a new style of
performing that’s universally understood, accessible to
participants and audiences of every income level, and
dynamic.
Les Minutes complètement cirque | Photo © Andrew Miller
STEPHEN HUNT has been an arts reporter and theatre critic at the Calgary Herald since 2006. He covers the performing
arts, writing about theatre, dance, opera, classical music, books and travel. He’s a long time on-air contributor to CBC
Radio’s popular Saturday afternoon program Definitely Not the Opera, who has also written for the Globe & Mail, LA
Times, New York Post, Saturday Night, Toro and many other magazines and newspapers. Hunt is also a playwright,
whose solo show The White Guy was produced by the Public Theatre in New York, in addition to theatres in Los
Angeles, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Orlando, before being published in Best American Short Plays 199798 (Applause Books). He’s a board member of the Canadian Theatre Critics.
Page 27
ENTRE INTENTION ET RÉCEPTION :
LE PUPLIC ET LA REPRÉSENTATION CIRCASSIENNE
PAR JANIE MALLET
“At school I learned, a prowess in contortion is 4
seconds. Second 1: you take the position. Second 2:
people see the position. Second 3: they receive what
you are doing. Second 4: they can react. If you do a
good act, it’s the way you do it. So of course, it’s the
first thing I put aside! "
Les yeux pétillants, visiblement allumée par la
discussion, Andréane Leclerc nous partage le chiffre
magique de la contorsion. Son spectacle Cherepaka est
né d’un désir de déconstruire la prouesse. Insatisfaite
d’être constamment confrontée à un public qui n’en
avait que pour ses contorsions, Leclerc souhaitait
comprendre l’expérience vécue par les spectateurs : ‘’ I
wanted to know how did you live it, what did you see,
what did you think ? ’’
Cette réflexion résonna avec mon questionnement
personnel. Depuis quatre jours, j’étais plongée dans le
monde du cirque avec une dizaine de journalistes
culturels. Lors de cette résidence intensive, nos
journées servaient à faire la visite de lieux significatifs,
à rencontrer les créateurs et les artistes, à voir des
spectacles en soirée et à en discuter le lendemain.
Cet accès privilégié s’avéra fort éclairant : nos
rencontres avec les artistes nous permettaient
d’entrouvrir une porte vers la démarche de création, les
étapes de conception du spectacle et l’objectif visé.
Assise dans la salle, je me remémorais ces entretiens
afin de mieux évaluer le résultat escompté. Au fil des
jours et des discussions, une réflexion s’imposa : l’écart
entre l’intention des artistes et la réception du public est
souvent présent… mais comment s’explique-t-il ? La
compréhension du public est-elle proportionnelle au
succès d’un spectacle de cirque ? Quels sont les
éléments qui font qu’un public répond aux propositions
des créateurs ? Quelle est la place du public dans la
représentation circassienne ? J’explorerai ici quelques
pistes d’observations et de questionnements formulés
entre la salle et les rencontres avec les créateurs de
quatre spectacles.
Abstract | BETWEEN INTENTION AND RECEPTION –
AUDIENCE AND CIRCUS PERFORMANCE | Four days
thrust into the circus world. Four days of meetings with
artists, of site visits, of shows, of reflections, and of
discussions. These privileged encounters offered a
chance to consider the contrast between a show’s point
of departure and its final result. Armed with
information often kept from the public, some
consideration is in order: What is the source of the gap
between artist intention and audience reception? Is
audience comprehension proportional to the success of
a circus show? What factors lead the public to respond
to creators’ ideas and proposals? Starting with the
personal experience of the author, a journalist-inresidence during this intensive cultural experience, the
shows Cherepaka, BARBU foire electro trad, Warm,
and Le Pianiste are explored briefly here, shedding light
on specific moments and questions of the audience
during those performances.
Cherepaka, ou exécuter la contorsion
Dans la salle de l’Espace GO, une plateforme ronde fait
effet de présentoir. À notre arrivée, l’interprète est
debout, tête basculée vers l’arrière, nous offrant sa
gorge, sa respiration, sa déglutition : elle nous attend
pour entamer son mouvement. Mouvement qui sera
d’une lenteur inhabituelle afin de nous faire vivre étape
par étape la technique du corps. Pendant tout le
spectacle, elle passera doucement par plusieurs poses et
angles afin d’arriver ultimement à une prouesse.
Cherepaka est le fruit d’une recherche universitaire sur
la prouesse évocatrice de sens. Tout comme
l’interprète, assise dans le noir de la salle, j’ai aussi
passé une bonne partie du spectacle à me questionner, à
chercher le sens de son spectacle. La discussion du
lendemain matin a complètement changé ma
perception : j’avais désormais une clé me permettant
d’accéder à une lecture plus approfondie et empreinte
d’un sens nouveau. Mon questionnement était devenu
expérience vécue.
Page 28
Selon le programme, ce tableau scénique représente à la
fois la mort d’une tortue ainsi que « la tension qui habite
l’être humain entre sa quête d’infini et la mortalité de sa
chaire animale ». L’interprète nous le confirmera en
entretien, cette dualité se retrouve sur scène entre les
deux personnages qu’elle incarne : celui de la proie et
du prédateur. Le public est convié à la rencontre et la
transformation de ces deux êtres, l’interprète incarnant
parfois l’un, parfois l’autre. Ainsi, le quatrième mur
sera respecté ; lorsque l’artiste plonge son regard dans
la salle elle n’y voit pas des spectateurs mais bien une
proie. Cette distance aide à la réception du public en
créant un espace nécessaire à la réflexion, à
l’interrogation et au retour sur soi. Face à ce spectacleperformance, le fil narratif se crée de l’intérieur, chez le
spectateur.
Cherepaka n’est pas un spectacle reposant pour le
spectateur avide de compréhension. Cependant, entre
observation, réaction et réflexion, l’indifférence est une
lointaine possibilité. Si l’expérience du spectateur était
au cœur de ses préoccupations, Leclerc a bel et bien
gagné son pari !
Barbu, ou voir la prouesse
Inspiré du temps des foires et du divertissement propre
au cirque traditionnel, l’une des forces de BARBU foire
électro trad est sans doute la musique live où la
réappropriation du répertoire traditionnel québécois
permet un son renouvelé aux saveurs électro qui a pour
effet d’entraîner la foule. L’ambiance est à la fête et
tous les ingrédients s’y prêtent.
Dans ce cabaret électro-trad, aucun quatrième mur. Les
artistes regardent souvent leur auditoire et attendent sa
réaction à la fin de leurs numéros. Ils s’exécutent pour
le public et se nourrissent de ses applaudissements.
Tous – acrobates, musiciens et spectateurs – sont dans
le même lieu, au même moment, ce qui contribue à la
réception enjouée du public. Nous sommes en plein
happening et en faisons partie.
La publicité joue également dans la prédisposition des
spectateurs. Loin des images léchées présentant des
corps coupés au couteau, l’affiche de BARBU nous fait
voir trois circassiens à la carrure ordinaire, arborant la
barbe longue et un caleçon en guise d’habit. Le ton est
à l’autodérision et au divertissement. Les barbus misent
sur leur humanité : le public s’y reconnait et
sympathise.
Cependant, si certains numéros empruntés aux cirques
d’antan sont plaisants à revoir, force est de constater
que d’autres aspects auraient bénéficié d’une
réinterprétation innovatrice. Les femmes, par exemple,
BARBU foire électro trad – Photo © Andrei Kalamkarov
From left to right : Matias Salmenaho, Antoine CarabinierLépine, Jacques Schneider and Jonathan Casaubon
sont plus souvent qu’autrement reléguées à l’arrièreplan, amenant les objets pour leurs compatriotes mâles
ou se pavanant les mains sur les hanches dans la foule.
Un seul numéro met en scène toutes les filles de la
troupe (comparativement à plusieurs pour les hommes).
Au rythme des coups de fouets de la musicienne de cuir
noir vêtue, deux filles font du main à main dans la boue.
Le plaisir ne semblant pas présent sur scène, autour, le
public regarde, via celui proche de la scène recouvert
d’un grand plastique, distribué afin de protéger des
éclaboussures, et laisse passer un malaise. Tenant
compte du long moment de préparation qui n’aboutira
jamais en prouesse impressionnante, ce numéro
constitue davantage un bémol qu’un ajout au spectacle.
Si Cherepaka déconstruit la prouesse, BARBU
s’articule autour du divertissement qu’elle implique. La
prouesse n’est pas au centre du spectacle, elle n’en est
qu’un élément permettant la fête collective. Bien qu’ils
impressionnent par leur polyvalence et le nombre de
numéros que chaque artiste effectue, les reprises parfois
nombreuses agaceront les perfectionnistes. En ne
Page 29
prenant pas le tout trop au sérieux, il n’en résulte pas
moins un spectacle agréable et accessible. Au son de la
musique live, avec appuis vidéo et numéros variés qui
se succèdent, BARBU semble idéal comme initiation à
l’art circassien lors d’une soirée festive entre amis.
Warm, ou recevoir la prouesse
exécution en conditions extrêmes que sa sensualité
proposée.
Le Pianiste, ou la réaction du public
La prémisse du spectacle est simple : un pianiste entre
sur scène, se rend au piano et entame son récital.
Un pied dans la salle et la chaleur est palpable. Un jeune
homme à l’entrée nous offre une bouteille d’eau que
chacun prend avec empressement. « La température
atteindra 45 degrés ». C’est ce qu’affirme le programme
du spectacle… qui se transforme rapidement çà et là en
éventails.
Dès sa première entrée, la relation avec le public est au
centre de la trame narrative. Pour le pianiste, nous
sommes venus assister non pas au spectacle de cirque,
mais au concert. Ainsi, le quatrième mur est inexistant
et l’interaction est directe avec le public, même si la
réalité n’est pas la même pour le pianiste que son
auditoire.
Warm est né d’une idée du metteur en scène David
Bobée qui, en observant des artistes de main à main
s’échauffer, eut envie d’explorer l’aspect sensuel de
cette discipline. Afin d’ajouter une contrainte, il a
éclairé la scène de près à l’aide de nombreux
projecteurs choisis pour la chaleur qu’ils génèrent. Ici,
le risque et la prouesse sont à la fois moteurs de création
et support à la trame dramaturgique.
Gaffeur, le personnage du pianiste séduit la foule en
même temps que l’agilité de l’interprète impressionne :
il conquiert la salle dès les premières minutes. Thomas
Monkton étant en pleine possession de son art, le public
est également en pleine confiance et se laisse entraîner
dans les nombreuses péripéties. En direct de nos sièges,
nous partons en voyage.
À cette exécution technique se superpose un texte
érotique décrivant un orgasme féminin. Bobée
expliquera : « I need this text to give the opportunity to
the audience to project the erotism into the stage. They
are not acting like two gays. But through this text, we
are allowed as an audience to project the meaning of
those movements ».
Spectacle raffiné, abouti et présenté dans divers pays,
l’un de ses aspects les plus impressionnants est
assurément la capacité de l’artiste à évoquer des images
en une fraction de seconde. Par exemple, utilisant le
chandelier, le clown devient trapéziste et freine son élan
tête en bas, bras croisés, restant immobile au gré du
léger balancement. En deux secondes, la salle éclate de
rire : tous ont vu la chauve-souris dormant dans sa cave.
Si ces mots visaient à éveiller une certaine sensualité,
mon expérience fut totalement contraire. Si Bobée
affirme que le texte n’est pas important, il est pour le
moins très présent. Impossible d’en faire fi car la
comédienne le clame souvent de façon saccadée,
agressive et soutenue, sans pause significative
nécessaire à l’introspection.
Ainsi, dans ce lieu où le quatrième mur est présent, le
public devient voyeur : on assiste au fantasme de la
femme qui se crée sous nos yeux, qui s’incarne par ces
deux corps. Le texte visant à éveiller l’univers sensoriel
du spectateur, il m’aurait semblé plus efficace de
masquer son origine. Par exemple, s’il était livré par
bande sonore – alternant entre une voix féminine,
masculine ou androgyne de surcroit – le spectateur
deviendrait le point de naissance de cette sensualité que
souhaitait Bobée. En résulterait peut-être une
expérience plus intuitive et interne de cette recherche.
Au final, dans ce spectacle construit autour de la
prouesse comme support à la trame narrative, force est
d’admettre que je suis restée plus impressionnée par son
S’il est visiblement très agile, l’interprète mise
également sur l’intelligence de son public. Dans ce
monde ludique, les images se succèdent à un rythme
effarant. Propre à l’univers du clown, le moindre objet
devient prémisse à une histoire qui se développe
rapidement sous nos yeux, et que nous saisissons sans
ambiguïté. Ainsi, lorsque le pianiste pose la main sur
son tabouret, ses mains deviennent tour à tour jeunes
enfants gambadant, adultes et vieillards se rendant
jusqu’à la mort. L’histoire d’une vie, du bout des doigts.
Moment de poésie simple et transcendant.
Tout ce qui est présent sur scène sera utilisé. Dans sa
maîtrise du timing, l’artiste interagira sans hésitation
aux pleurs d’un bébé dans la salle ou à tout autre
imprévu. Si Le Pianiste ne réinvente rien, il gagne notre
adhésion en allant au bout de son idée et de sa pensée.
En comparaison avec Warm qui mise sur la sensation
du public, Le Pianiste mise sur son imagination et sur
le pouvoir d’évocation. Les références multiples et
diverses, ainsi que la forte présence scénique de
l’acteur, jumelé à son sens impeccable du timing
Page 30
rendent cette épopée intelligente et enlevante pour toute
la famille. Un spectacle jouissif !
Conclusion
Le cirque ayant évolué en de multiples directions, plaire
au public n’est plus l’objectif ultime sans équivoque.
Cependant, force est de constater que les spectateurs
font partie de l’équation : sinon, on se contente de faire
ses contorsions dans son salon ! Du désir de divertir des
foires traditionnelles, à la fascination des freak shows,
en passant par la recherche artistique et le retour à la
technique, un point en commun : le public idéal est un
public engagé dans ce voyage qu’est la représentation,
fusse-t-il individuel ou collectif, introspectif ou festif.
Si la question du public varie selon les références et les
cultures, le langage universel du cirque nous aura
permis de passer par toute une gamme d’émotions. En
introspection profonde devant Cherepaka, ou la bière à
la main en applaudissant BARBU, au gré des sursauts et
des gouttes de sueur de Warm, ou en émerveillement
devant Le Pianiste et son univers poétique, tous ces
spectacles ont su nous transporter, nous sortir de notre
quotidien afin d’élargir nos horizons et d’explorer un
pan de notre humanité... En soi, ne s'agit-il pas d'un
objectif noble et enviable pour toutes les formes d'art ?
Thomas Monkton in Le Pianiste – Photo © Cindy Boyce
JANIE MALLET est journaliste et animatrice à Radio-Canada. Alternant entre la télévision et la radio, elle a un pied-àterre à Moncton, au Nouveau-Brunswick et y sonde le milieu culturel depuis 2008. Comédienne de formation, elle a
œuvré tant sur la scène qu’en coulisses. Curieuse de nature, elle s’intéresse à l’art sous toutes ses formes, et aux humains
qui le créent.
Page 31
PURELY PERSONAL MUSINGS
ON THE MEANING OF “PROUESSE” IN CIRCUS
BY ROBIN J. MILLER
There is an anecdote told about the parents of William
Butler Yeats, thought by many to be the greatest poet in
English of the 20th century. When he was young, W.B.
Yeats loved to ride his bicycle and was, in fact, on his
way to becoming a very good racer. But his parents
(particularly his father, who started as a lawyer but later
became a painter) objected strenuously to his prowess
on the bike. They were relieved when he chose poetry
instead. Poetry – a true art – was respectable and good;
anything involving physical labour was not.
Both “prouesse” in French and “prowess” in English
have their roots in “proeche,” an Old French noun
meaning chivalry and gallantry as well as bravery and
valour. In the Middle Ages, a knight or chevalier sought
to achieve “prouesse” – to be skilled and valiant in
battle – but also to be courteous, gentle, loyal, honest
and generous. Medieval tournaments in the England of
King Arthur were known as “écoles de prouesse,”
where young men of the aristocracy learned not only
how to use weapons, but when to use them, according
to a strict chivalric code of conduct – in the service of
God, to protect a damsel, etc.
In English, as “prouesse” became “prowess” over time,
its definition narrowed at the same time as it became
less elitist. A few centuries after the Knights of the
Round Table, “prowess” was used to describe skill and
bravery in battle for any man, not just the nobility, but
it was stripped of any notion of broader chivalry. That
meaning continues today, but “prowess” is now often
applied to non-military accomplishments (although it
still remains largely the province of men). However, it
has also picked up some negative connotations on the
way: in addition to “feat” and “achievement,” common
synonyms include “stunt” and “exploit,” activities done
merely to attract attention.
Which is perhaps why “prowess” is rarely, if ever, used
by English-language dance, opera and theatre critics to
describe the artists they are reviewing. The word seems
to separate the individual achievement from the
collective artistry. Maybe it feels a little too manly, or
too physical or even too narcissistic for these art forms.
Résumé | PENSÉES TRÈS PERSONNELLES SUR LE SENS
DE LA PROUESSE AU CIRQUE | Les mots « prouesse » en
français et « prowess » en anglais proviennent tous
deux de « proeche », un mot de vieux français qui
signifie la « chevalerie » et la « galanterie » de même
que la bravoure et la vaillance. Au Moyen-Âge, un
chevalier devait accomplir des prouesses, c’est-à-dire
être habile et vaillant au combat, mais aussi se montrer
courtois, tendre, loyal, honnête et généreux. En anglais,
« prouesse » s’est transformé avec le temps en
« prowess », accumulant au passage certaines
connotations négatives. En effet, en plus de
« l’exploit » et de la « réalisation », les synonymes
communs de prouesse incluent désormais « cascade »
et « coup d’éclat », qui sont en réalité des actions
réalisées simplement pour attirer l’attention. Ceci
pourrait expliquer pourquoi le terme « prouesse » n’est
rarement, voire jamais, utilisé par les critiques
anglophones de danse, d’opéra et de théâtre pour
décrire les artistes qu’ils évaluent. À l’inverse, il suffit
de passer un peu de temps auprès de gens de cirque pour
réaliser que la « prouesse » – l’effort et l’atteinte de
celle-ci – est une partie centrale de leur lexique et de
leur être. Dans certains des spectacles que nous avons
vus pendant l’édition 2015 de MONTRÉAL
COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE, la prouesse s’est
manifestée par la maîtrise physique et, dans certains
cas, elle a été élevée au rang d’un art pleinement réalisé.
I will get to the point eventually …
Yet hang around circus people for any time and you
realize that “prouesse” – the striving for and attainment
of it – is a central part of both their lexicon and their
being.
As in English, the Old French “proeche” gradually lost
its chivalric overtones and today synonyms for
“prouesse” in French include “fait d’armes,” “coup
d’épate” and “tour de force.” These terms all focus on
achievement, on pulling off a difficult or dangerous
feat. Like any “stunt,” these achievements might be
solely for the purpose of attracting attention, but the
Page 32
words used to describe them sound far more positive
and interesting in French than in English. Today, these
terms are often used by English language writers, too,
especially “tour de force,” to describe accomplishments
far outside the physical arena: “Her book is a tour de
force.” In circus, “prouesse” is an end in itself: a
mastery of a specific physical skill, just like that of
singing opera or dancing en pointe. But unlike those
skills, in circus just as in battle (back to the Middle
Ages), attaining “prouesse” can, depending on your
discipline, mean the difference between life and death.
Which may be why we (writers in English, anyway)
tend to think of singing opera or dancing en pointe more
as “mastering technique” than acquiring prowess. In
circus and in war, if you have not attained prowess, you
will fail and you may die, which cannot help but
influence the way circus artists (and soldiers) perform
and how they think about themselves and what they are
performing.
polished, highly developed tricks of the performers,
which ended up feeling like a series of great acts,
demonstrating prowess only for prowess’s sake.
“Prouesse” and the performances we saw …
“Prouesse” manifested itself in many ways in the shows
we saw as a group of 10 journalists participating in this
year’s “Circus stories, Le Cirque vu par…” residency,
during 2015’s MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT
CiRQUE.
Sometimes, as in Beyond, presented by the Australian
company Circa, the “prouesse” was crystal clear. These
acrobats were immensely skilled. They had mastered
their art and showed us exactly what they could do, and
it was in many ways fabulous to watch, especially
because there were two bases supporting the flyers: one
male and one female, who were equally strong and
equally featured. But once you went past the mastery,
the “prouesse” began to ring hollow.
While the uncommented-upon equality of men and
women felt like a nice evolution for circus, the show
also felt distinctly old-fashioned for its emphasis on
simply presenting one brilliant set of skills after another
and for its male-gaze costuming: the men were in fulllength street clothes, the women, much of the time, in
prettily feathered bras. Director Yaron Lifshitz tried to
add a layer of meaning with the intermittent appearance
of large stuffed animal heads on the performers, but it
never developed as a narrative. Now, narrative is of
course not required – George Balanchine, for example,
proved half a century ago that dance does not need a
plot to hold an audience or convey meaning (he had a
habit of saying “we can’t dance synonyms”) – but an
organizing idea, with a clear beginning, middle and end,
is what makes a show feel complete. The soft animal
heads and occasional use of animal noises and
behaviour clashed with, rather than added to, the
Small world, same skills …
While circus is a small world, it’s clear that within that
world there are a number of people who can master the
same skills, acquire the same “prouesse.” So something
else (as the medieval knights already knew) needs to be
added to the mix to elevate skill to something even more
interesting. While the knights went for chivalry, Cirque
Alphonse’s answer in BARBU foire electro trad was
deliberate sloppiness.
The Québec company aesthetic is a sort of anti“prouesse”: we know how to do these tricks and we can
do them neatly and cleanly and blow your socks off if
we want to, but we choose to show you how hard they
are instead, how easy it is to miss, how close to disaster
we can come without going over the edge. This attitude
– combined with extravagantly manly beards and
confining the action to a narrow runway mere
centimetres from the audience sitting cabaret-style
around it – gave the show great energy and a certain
Page 33
scruffy flair, but the lack of polish felt just as contrived
as any more traditional circus show.
In a piece called Warm, the French director David
Bobée takes two hand-to-hand acrobats (Edward
Aleman and Wilmer Marquez) and destabilizes them
with heat as high as 60° Celsius to make their hands and
feet slip and slide, and two banks of 50 spotlights each
to strain their vision and balance. It’s easy to understand
why the acrobats wanted to do this piece: it’s a
challenge to their prowess. Can they do what the
director is asking of them? Yes, they can. Should they
do what the director is asking of them? Well, that’s a
whole other question. Aleman and Marquez were
superb, compelling, extraordinary, but they were using
their “prouesse” in the service of a show that did not
deserve it. For me, Warm is what’s known in the opera
world as the dreaded “regietheatre,” where the
director’s hubris (another word with a whole lot of
history behind it) is so great, he loses sight of artists and
audience in his desire to pursue his concept.
work; juggling five while balancing on a tight rope, now
that’s difficult. Physical prowess is generally pretty
easy to recognize, but what constitutes “prouesse” in
clowning?
On the other hand …
There were two shows where prowess and idea
combined to create work of elegance, intelligence and
power. Interestingly enough, both were solo shows
based on ideas developed over time by the artists
themselves, and both demonstrated a “prouesse” of an
entirely different sort from the flash of hand-to-hand
acrobats or the drama of aerialists.
There was a clear narrative underlying Québecoise
contortionist Andréane Leclerc’s Cherepaka, but you
did not need to read the story in the programme to feel
it resonate in your chest. Hers was a deliberate
deconstruction and recreation of what “prouesse” has
traditionally meant for contortionists. Instead of quick
moves (four seconds is the standard taught in circus
school) designed to show exactly how bendy she can
be, Leclerc moved with a luxurious slowness, with an
emphasis on very specific, often unusual, parts of her
body. As the audience filed in, she showed us her ribs
in a back bend; later her shoulder blades became the
focus. It took time for us to settle into her pace and then
to realize exactly how far she had pushed her body. Her
intent was not to shock the audience, to make us squirm
and gasp, but rather to bring us into her world on stage
– the world of a dying turtle – by demonstrating an
absolute control over her body. And it was beautiful.
As audience members, one of the ways we recognize
and rank the “prouesse” of circus performers is by how
difficult we perceive what they are doing to be. Juggling
two balls, I can do that; juggling five might take some
Andreane Leclerc in Cherepaka: “prouesse” elevated by artistry
Photo © Nadère arts vivants
The New Zealand-born clown Thomas Monkton is a
skilled acrobat, but much of what he did in Le Pianiste,
commissioned by Finland’s Circo Aereo, looked easy
enough that anyone could do it. Or maybe he was just
kindly letting us think so. Le Pianiste is a bravura
display of how to quietly, comically, remind us of the
public pratfalls we have all taken at some point on our
way through life. Monkton’s beleaguered classical
pianist, brimming with confidence, impeccably dressed
in black tie and tails, suddenly beset by a seemingly
unending string of bad luck on the way to his
instrument, is us – and there lies his “prouesse.” He
makes us see ourselves, and laugh.
And finally, for no particular reason, back to W.B. Yeats
…
W.B. Yeats’s parents disliked his prowess on a bike;
they approved of his mastery of poetry. It certainly had
Page 34
something to do with class and their perception of what
was acceptable work. Five hundred years before, in the
age of chivalry, physical “prouesse” was required by the
upper classes to hold onto power and property; by
Yeats’ birth in 1865, survival in his world was not
dependent on physical skill. Today, who knows, his
parents might have been better pleased with his first
choice. But I for one am glad he found his “prouesse”
in words rather than in cycling, for the world would be
a poorer place without lines like “I have spread my
dreams under your feet/Tread softly because you tread
on my dreams,” or “The worst thing about some men is
that when they are not drunk they are sober.”
Young performers developing their “prouesse" at the National Circus School
Photo © Robin J. Miller
ROBIN J. MILLER is a freelance writer based near Victoria, B.C. She writes features and reviews for national and
international arts publications, including Dance International and Opera Canada. Her work on other topics – ranging
from architecture and design to neurodevelopment and super colliders – has appeared in Canadian Living, Canadian
Journal of Green Building and Design, Innovation, BC Homes, Design Quarterly, and Business in Vancouver among
others.
Page 35
CIRCUS OF THE OPEN MIND
BY KATHLEEN SMITH
The performer, in a deep, deep plié, extends her arms;
hands clasped, and rotates them from the shoulder to a
position behind her head. She does this slowly, all the
while gazing implacably at her audience. They sit on
benches in the dark, closely jammed together in the hot
room, just beyond her circle of light. They empathize
with the deep stretch in her arms from fists through
locked elbows, and the long power of the triceps, if not
with the continuing motion back, back, back to the point
of dislocation. The performer seems rooted to the
ground, weight low and unbudgeable, her feet, clad in
leather booties, might be bolted to the stage. There’s a
primordial heaviness in the room – something ancient
is present. Yet modern preoccupations also intrude as
time shifts and collapses. Unspoken thought bubbles
dart around the theatre: I wonder if that hurts? Why
does that person sitting in front of me keep shifting
around? Is this circus or performance art? Where are
we? Not for the performer though – she is quietly
caught up in her embodiment of the present moment, a
moment that also encompasses the past and the future.
Her engagement with it does not waver. Slowly, in this
hot dark collective point in time and space, the mental
chitter chatter falls away and we join her, in silent
contact. It took a long time, but here we are at last,
together.
***
The performer is Andréane Leclerc, a 31-year-old
contemporary circus artist and contortionist. While her
training is rooted in classical circus, Leclerc is
concerned with stretching boundaries in the same ways
she stretches her limbs – to the breaking point. Her 2013
solo work, Cherepaka, is the result of years of research
into deconstruction and performance theory.
Traditionally, circus contortion acts have been based on
the rapidly unfolding shock, provoking in viewers a
sudden flinch. Leclerc describes the standard format to
our group of journalists in residence at MONTREAL
COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE. “The classic pose lasts
four seconds,” says Leclerc in an interview conducted
on the morning after her opening performance. “One
second to prepare, one second to show the pose, one
second to let the audience absorb the pose and one
second to unfold the pose.”
Résumé | LE CIRQUE DE L’OUVERTURE D’ESPRIT |
Andréanne Leclerc est une artiste de cirque
contemporain de 31 ans et une contorsionniste de
formation classique. Son spectacle d’une durée d’une
heure, Cherepaka, présenté durant l’édition 2015 de
MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE est une réimagination de l'esthétique traditionnelle de la
contorsion, basée sur une recherche approfondie de la
théorie de la déconstruction et de la performance.
Traditionnellement, les numéros de contorsion ont été
construits de la même manière : un choc qui se déroule
rapidement, provoquant chez le spectateur un
tressaillement soudain. Lors d’une entrevue réalisée
dans le cadre de la résidence d’écriture Circus Stories,
Le cirque vu par…, Leclerc décrit ce format standard :
« La pose classique de contorsion dure quatre
secondes : une seconde pour la préparer, une seconde
pour l’exécuter, une seconde pour laisser le public
absorber la figure et une seconde pour sortir de la
pose ». Dans son propre travail, plus subversif, Leclerc
conteste ce laps de temps de même que plusieurs autres
conventions, dont celle de l'esthétique de risque, qui est
au cœur même de la culture du cirque. Leclerc, un
modèle de cirque contemporain, pousse ses
explorations au-delà des restrictions disciplinaires, tout
en honorant ses racines de cirque classique. Une œuvre
lente et méditative comme Cherepaka pourrait
facilement être présentée dans une galerie d’art, dans un
événement de danse contemporaine ou dans un festival
comme MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CIRQUE.
Several years ago Leclerc decided to challenge this time
frame, along with several other conventions including
the aesthetics of risk that is at the very heart of circus
culture.
There is a difference between what the acrobat lives
from the inside and what the audience sees,” says
Leclerc. “The acrobat inside feels alive and connected
to the world. They live in the present moment. To do a
prouesse (a virtuosic move or use of a refined skill) is
still at the core of circus. Without this circus doesn’t
exist.”
The aesthetics of risk were certainly on display at many
of the shows at this 6th edition of MONTREAL
COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE. It ranged from the
Page 36
precision of hand-to-hand and aerial acrobatics of the
Australian troupe Circa’s Beyond, where missing a trick
could mean grave injury or death, to Cirque Alfonse’s
latest BARBU family offering, Foire electro-trad, in
which the risks are more dramaturgical.
French director David Bobée’s Warm played most
explicitly with those aesthetics of risk, by seeming to
raise the danger stakes for performers Wilmer Marquez
and Edward Aleman. Bobée conceived of a
performance environment using amplifiers and a bank
of lights to ensure that heat, sweat and bright light – all
problematic for hand-to-hand acrobatic performers –
were treacherously and oppressively present.
Of course, risk cannot exist without occasional failure.
In Cirque Alfonse’s Foire electro-trad, the performers
failed most often and most overtly of all the shows I
attended at Complètement Cirque – not intentionally
necessarily, but let’s say without shame. Whenever a
trick was flubbed, the performer would try it again, and
again, until successful completion. This is the
traditional circus way, our group’s mediator Yohann
Floch tells us. Failure is universally accepted as a fact
of life and art in almost every circus endeavor. In some
radical examples of contemporary circus however, the
mechanics of failure come close to being the main
thematic event.
In New Zealand artist Thomas Monkton’s solo work at
Complètement Cirque, The Pianist, foibles, clumsiness
and the continual material roadblocks presented by the
physical world are deployed for comic effect. More
than the keyboard, failure is Monckton’s instrument.
Taking a subversive and questioning approach with
Cherepaka, Leclerc investigates her own complicated
relationship to the conventional aesthetics of risk. “In
the moment, inside the performance, I don’t feel at risk
at all,” she admits. “I don’t think I’m gonna die, I don’t
think I will be injured, even though the risk is there. But
because the risk is there it brings you a total awareness
of the space of your body and the audience in relation
to the space. You were preparing something and you are
gonna arrive at something. So what happens if you
extend that moment in time for a whole hour?”
The performer makes a bridge with her body, back bent,
stomach aimed at the sky, on tippy toes. A narrow band
of light illuminates her torso windpipe to groin. In this
precarious position the performer slowly starts to
rotate her hips. Once again gazing at the audience
(though her face is upside down), she lowers her butt to
the ground, her arms splaying along the ground. All
around is the buzz and beat of Alexis Bowles’ electronic
score. It is not quite music, but it is definitely rhythm,
machine-like, but reminiscent also of the hypnotic sonic
repetition of a cicada or tree frog.
Cherepaka (it means ‘turtle’ in Russian) constitutes
Leclerc’s
UQAM
Master’s
thesis
in
theatre/performance studies. It is both her research and
the culmination of her research. As our morning-after
interview continues, she haltingly describes the impact
that the art of painter Francis Bacon and of Gilles
Deleuze’s classic anti-representational analysis of
Bacon’s painting, Logique de la sensation (The Logic
of Sensation), has had on her work.
“Contemporary circus proposes a deconstructed,
subverted or re-configured exploration of the human
body in contortion,” Leclerc explains. For the creation
of Cherepaka, Leclerc and collaborator Alexis Bowles
thought about how to isolate parts of her body for
consideration.
The durational aspect of the piece and its very slow pace
aids this objective, as do the scenography, and
costuming designed by Marilène Bastien. Leclerc wears
baggy pants that taper through the lower leg and, by
means of eyelets and ribbons, reveal her spine, lower
back and coccyx. In the most recent iteration of
Cherepaka, Leclerc wears a strange brassiere of molded
leather that covers her breasts but leaves the channel in
between them free and exposed. When she bends her
back the long line from groin to jaw forms a vector of
sorts. Bowles’ lighting design serves to concentrate
attention on different parts of Leclerc’s body, and
obscures them at other times, for example, making her
appear headless in one pose.
Rather than an erotic body or a thwarted body (as in
Monckton’s The Pianist), Leclerc proposes an animal
body. This body alternates between being predator and
prey, it carries all of its metaphysical possessions within
it, and it is mortal. The metaphor is apt, yet the idea of
the turtle came to Leclerc in a flash very late in the
development process. “It came to me while I was riding
the bus one day,” she recalls. “OMG, it’s a turtle! I just
started crying and that was that.”
Animal themes are a trope with deep roots in circus
history. In these days when actual animals are no longer
generally part of a circus experience, homage to that
idea is paid metaphorically and frequently. In Leclerc’s
Cherepaka, animal nature is explored abstractly – her
turtle is a million years old, it is dying and it is also a
fossil, a remnant of what once was. Uninitiated
audience members may sense the meaning of the
subject matter without actually knowing any details.
In contrast, Circa’s Beyond grapples superficially with
the idea that escape from our animal nature is not
Page 37
possible. They wear plush animal heads, stifle
outbreaks of barnyard noises, and perform aerial feats
while wearing feathered bras – but these are oblique
nods rather than serious comments. The work is
arguably unsuccessful in its dramaturgical mandate,
because the seven-member troupe just doesn’t embody
or push the concept far enough.
Cirque Alfonse also pays glancing homage to animal
tradition by introducing Milette the hamster as a
possible mascot and minion for the show’s hokey
mentalist Lucas Jolly. Mostly it feels like an in-joke –
the tiny animal (barely visible to those in the cheap
seats) is reverently carried around, placed on
performers’ heads, and then disappears.
The performer sits at the edge of her circle of light, back
to her watchers. Every vertebra of that broad pale back,
every rib is articulated. Her chin down in front and the
bright spot overhead makes it look as if her body ends
at the top of the spine – no brain, no face, just a torso
gently pulsing with life. Slowly, she twists to offer us a
baleful glare.
Audience expectations of circus in the contemporary
performance arena are undergoing a revolution. At this
point, it is probably best to arrive at the Big Top/ Grand
Chapiteau with none. Categories have become more
fluid and disciplines overlap. Narrative, dramaturgy
and scenography are frequently used to add multiple
meanings to old school prouesse and spectacle. The
potential power of this combination clearly has
everyone excited. If the world-wide success of Cirque
du Soleil opened the eyes of the mainstream to circus,
the contemporary circus movement in Montreal is
delving deeply into what it means to watch circus
performance.
Many of the artists working in this milieu are looking
for more than gasps and screams from their audience –
they are hoping to share ideas and unique visions of
possible worlds. Even cheeky Cirque Alfonse, (whose
most famous show to date is Timber!, an earthy circus
spin on authentic lumberjacking traditions that they say
was created especially for Quebeckers), are pushing
certain envelopes in this respect.
The cabaret-style Foire electro-trad uses ambiance and
theatrical/musical constructs to suggest a deceptively
simple and immediate camaraderie with watchers.
Here, a vocabulary of prouesse (some of it botched)
keeps the audience attentive as the performers layer up
the irony, metaphor, political commentary and humour.
For Leclerc, the whole question of audience
engagement inspired the new direction in her work that
led directly to Cherepaka. “In new circus you think
about what you want to say to the audience, you think
about your costume and so on, and then you make your
piece. I’ve been touring that way for many years. After
a certain point I just realized that what I wanted to say
through my act was never reaching my audience.”
Leclerc doesn’t expect her intent and performance to be
completely legible or understood by those who
experience it. But she says she craved a different, more
thoughtful encounter. “I was always a bit frustrated that
they were only seeing the contortion and how amazing
and how flexible and how painful it might be, how
young did I start, is my family circus? These were not
the questions that I wanted people to ask me. With
Cherepaka, there’s a sense and a logic to my idea and
my wish. I give this to the audience and I want to
stimulate their imagination.”
The performer stands upright on her two legs – she
appears powerful and tall in this pose after all the time
she has spent on the ground, writhing, panting,
struggling. Up from her planted feet, rib cage torqued
forward, the performer’s energy now shoots through
arms and clenched hands reaching to the sides as if for
propulsion. Her head is back and a bright white light
bathes her. No longer quite turtle, no longer quite
contorted, she reaches into the beyond, whatever and
wherever that might be.
KATHLEEN SMITH is a Toronto-based writer, curator and filmmaker with an interest in performance. She writes about
dance regularly for NOW Weekly [https://nowtoronto.com/stage/dance], Dance International, The Dance Current
[http://www.thedancecurrent.com/news-article/circus-stories-residency] and many other Canadian and international
publications, both print and online.
Page 38
REMERCIEMENTS
En Piste tient à remercier ses partenaires qui ont rendu possible la réalisation de la seconde édition de
Circus Stories, Le cirque vu par…
La TOHU - MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE (Nadia Drouin, Alice Kop, Stéphane Lavoie, Annie
Leclerc-Casavant, Nadine Marchand, Aude Watier)
L’École nationale de cirque (Anna-Karina Barlati, Christophe Rousseau)
Cirque du Soleil (Agathe Alie, Marie-Noëlle Caron)
Cirque Éloize (Claudia-Sam Cataford Sauvé)
Cirque Alfonse (Antoine Carabinier-Lépine et Alain Francoeur)
Nadère Arts Vivants (Andréane Leclerc)
David Bobée et Edward Aleman
Thomas Monkton
Anthony Venisse
Hotel Lord Berri
Tourisme Montréal (Dominique Desrosiers)
Réseau FACE, Fresh Arts Coalition Europe
Depuis 1997 au Canada, EN PISTE a pour mission de :
Développer consolider et favoriser la cohésion du milieu des arts du cirque.
Promouvoir les arts du cirque et la reconnaissance du milieu auprès du public, des diffuseurs, des instances
gouvernementales, des communautés d'affaires et sociales.
Regrouper les organismes et les individus œuvrant dans les arts du cirque ou liés à leur développement.
En Piste | 8181, 2e Avenue, 7e étage, Montréal (Québec) H1Z 4N9 | www.enpiste.qc.ca | T. 514 529-1183 | F. 514 529-6565
Page 39

Here - Fresh Arts Coalition Europe

Transcription

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