Drama, artistry, acrobats: Montreal circus performers go beyond the big top

Montreal is the capital of circus in North America, and the team behind Montral Compltement Cirque is promotingthe artinternationally through the festival.

This year marks not only its10th edition, but it's also the fifth edition of the international market of contemporary circus an important networking event for the industry.

"It'sa big rendez-vous of the circus world, we like to say," said festival director NadineMarchand.

The teamis hoping circus will land inNorth America'smainstream theatres soon.

That would follow Europe's lead, where theatres are already programming circus into their regular seasons,Marchandsaid.

How to do a helicopter cartwheel

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Acrobat Daniel Stefek shows how to do a special kind of cartwheel. He's performing as part of Montral Compltement Cirque July 4 to 14.

"I think the word 'circus' comes with a lot of old connotations that aren't really relevant anymore," saidnew director of programming Ruth Wilker.

Creative crossovers

Wilker saidcontemporary circus uses conventional circus skills like acrobatics but that those skills are used in a larger storytelling context.

"Contemporary circus is really about expression, and what you aresaying with these skills," she said.

An example of that kind of departure can be seen at the opening show of the festival, Bosch Dreams, which serves as an homage to surrealist painter Hieronymus Bosch and his work the Garden of Earthly Delights.

"This beautiful, sumptuous, gorgeous, basically living tableauintegrates circus skills into what is already a very circus-y, surreal set of images that are 500 years old," Wilker said.

The show was created by a local company called The 7 Fingers along with Copenhagen's Theatre Republique.

Circus in a Montreal theatre

Wilker said part of her job includes getting performing arts centres interested in taking on physical theatre shows as part of their season.

The idea has piqued the interest of Montreal's Centaur Theatre, which will bringthe show Un Poyo Rojo, from Argentina, to its mainstage in September, as a co-production withcontemporary circus company La Tohu.

Centaur's artistic director Eda Holmes said when she took the top job two years ago that she would work to encourage such creative crossovers.

Montral Compltement Cirque has free shows in local parks around Montreal,as well as indoor shows at La Tohuand other venues near its main outdoor siteonSt-Denis Street between Sherbrooke and Ste-Catherine streets and Place milie-Gamelin.

The festival runs from July 4 to 14.