National Circus School graduate show | dreamlike circus

They have weathered the pandemic storm together, far from the scene where they dream of making a career. Today, the graduates of the National Circus School can finally present the fruits of their efforts to the public. Their graduation gift comes in the form of a show titled Until the last mepresented at Tohu.

Stephanie Morin
The Press

The 40^e cohort of the ENC has shown a determination that commands admiration. Far from the spotlight where they can usually show off their talent, the students worked in the shadows for three years. Thursday evening, for the premiere of their show, the excitement was palpable, both on the stage and among the parents, friends and lovers of circus art who had come in large numbers to encourage them.

For a little over an hour, the 26 graduates from all over the world put on the numbers with often impeccable mastery, drawing for the occasion from an impressive number of disciplines, from juggling to aerial acrobatics, including contortion and clown art.

To tie it all together, the guest director Didier Lucien imagined a somewhat convoluted narrative framework, marked by the dream: that of being someone else, then someone else again, until embodying that dream.

The show begins gently, with a light movement of a contortionist acrobat to end in a frenzied cancan number performed by the entire troupe. Between the two, there are moments of beauty (an artist playing the harp suspended from the ceiling by its straps), of tenderness (a male female contortionist duo at the opening), of humor (clowns who try to resuscitate at crankshaft blows to a poor fainting artist).

There are also moments of pure exaltation, surges of youthful sap who dreams of storming all the big tops in the world. Unfortunately, the director was slow to allow this impatient vitality to express itself and it was not until the fifth tableau (out of nine!) that the show found a more dynamic rhythm.

When the atmospheric music gives way to more danceable tunes, the audience is delighted and welcomes it all with clapping and shouting. The show then takes an energetic turn that fits perfectly with the character of these graduates capable of doing everything, including dancing in a sublime way. The immense charisma of certain performers can be revealed, contact with the public becomes more natural and smiles begin to appear on their faces, which until then have been quite closed.

And when in the penultimate scene, they hug and kiss each other as a sign of farewell before each going their own way, we understand that everything they have been through has united them for life. This scene of real emotion conveys perhaps the strongest message of this unevenly staged, but nevertheless joyful show. Beyond the obstacles, the falls and the uncertainty of the future, there remains the friendship, woven over the years and which will resist – we hope – the passage of time.

Until June 12 at the Tohu.