Acrobats who fly, music that elevates: this is what the show offers After the night, which will open the Montreal completely circus festival starting July 5 at TOHU. We got a little taste of it.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
In the center of the room, on a circular stage surrounded by bleachers, the group Chances plays Leave the Light On, a textured and vibrant electropop piece. Above them, three acrobats plunge into the void, from very, very high, in an impressive trapeze-bungee act.
A few minutes earlier, it was a duo with straps that soared from the giant chandeliers and hovered above the heads of the three musicians, who then told us in an interview that they could feel the movements of air caused by the acrobats.
“This is the first time that we have chained three numbers in a row. It’s hard not to watch them all the time! “says the singer and multi-instrumentalist Geneviève Toupin. “We’ve been watching them calculate for several days, hearing them say: are you okay? OK cool, go! adds drummer Vincent Carré.
“We are really learning this environment,” opines another member of the trio, Chloé Lacasse. The singer and multi-instrumentalist is touched by the strength of numbers and the ardor that emerge from this show, which announces a kind of return to life, together. “We are moved, often. »
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PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Benjamin Courtney, Angelica Bongiovonni and Antoine Boissereau perform the trapeze-bungee while the three had never done before.
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PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Angelica Bongiovonni at the trapeze-bungee
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PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
The strap number, with Maxime Piché-Luneau and Caroline Huang
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PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
For Vincent Carré, Geneviève Toupin and Chloé Lacasse, from the Chances group, this show is a real gift.
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PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
There are also floor dance numbers, like this one featuring Zack Tang and Stacey Désiliers.
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“Yes, the acrobats pass close to the musicians, but less close than they seem. There is no real risk, ”said director Benoit Landry, who we met between two sequences on Wednesday, with a smile.
It was in 2019, long before the pandemic, that the one who directed Serge Fiori, alone together du Cirque Eloize received the order to create a tailor-made show for TOHU. A room, he specifies, which is rarely used to its full capacity since the shows presented there are often touring shows.
I wondered what we could do at TOHU that we couldn’t do elsewhere: seat the spectators 360 degrees around a central stage, use full height up to 65 feet, enter and exit through the ceiling, anywhere.
Benoit Landry, director ofAfter the night
In short, Mr. Landry decided to take advantage of all the possibilities available to him by creating a largely aerial show. “I spoiled myself. To do this, he hired the cream of acrobats who, thanks to the pandemic, were available for a long time.
“We had the luxury of being able to create a lot of original material and group numbers, because we had time. »
A collective recurring dream
Benoit Landry often had this recurring dream that he stole. “I miss this dream. And I know a lot of people have done it, and it’s still their favorite. It was by remembering the feeling he had upon waking up, “after flying all night”, that the plot of this show was born.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Benoit Landry, director ofAfter the night
We don’t know what people did during the night, and in the morning we meet again. It’s a bit of a reference to what we keep secret and which can’t be explained.
Benoit Landry, director ofAfter the night
The one who has mainly done theater productions loves the excess of the circus, but also its sensory side. After the night does not tell a story, but rather conveys a series of atmospheres and raw emotions.
There will also be dancing and, of course, a lot of music in this show, which revolves around that of the group Chances, chosen for their fine writing and their evocative and theatrical music “which transports us”.
“We are not in folk or song. There is something sometimes epic, which speaks to the soul, which comes to seek us out. »
This is also its objective: to give air to the spectators rather than to “settle” them.
“Yes, we need realism, struggles, commitment. But we also need poetry. It is a strong gesture, in the prevailing climate, to give oneself the mandate to elevate, to strive to remain luminous. I don’t know if that’s what people are going to get, but that’s the driving force. »