For their new show, the circus band Les 7 Doigts abandons the relative safety of the ring to expose themselves to the extreme cold on an icy surface. welcome to Cadencea show presented free of charge as part of Montréal en lumière and which pays tribute to skating in all its forms!
Posted at 7:00 p.m.
From February 24 to March 5, the skating rink on the Esplanade Tranquille in the Quartier des Spectacles will be the scene of feats on the blade performed by acrobat-skaters specially recruited for the occasion. Figure skaters, ice dancers, extreme skaters and barrel jumpers will rub shoulders with acrobats specializing in balance or the Cyr wheel in this 30-minute show with a very high difficulty index, say the creators.
Sébastien Soldevila, director of Cadenceexplains: “The idea behind Cadence is to offer in a few paintings a retrospective of the history of skating, but also to approach the relationship between man and ice. How did we go from crossing a frozen lake on blades to performing a triple axel? »
Big names present
Several big names in skating will be in attendance, including Olympic skaters Shawn Sawyer, Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac, as well as former Red Bull Crashed Ice gold medalist Martin Barrau. They will be accompanied by the original music of Maxim Lepage.
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PHOTO CATHERINE LEFEBVRE, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Cadence in rehearsal
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PHOTO CATHERINE LEFEBVRE, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Artists refine their art.
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PHOTO CATHERINE LEFEBVRE, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
The Bell Center is the theater for this training.
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For the narration, Sébastien Soldevila had the brilliant idea of calling on Alain Goldberg, who has analyzed figure skating competitions with his sweet voice since time immemorial. “Alain is a real well of knowledge about skating…”, says the director, who is not new to circus on ice, since he created the show in 2017 Crystal with Shana Carroll for Cirque du Soleil.
The man has also worked for three years at the Ice Academy in Montreal. This ice dance school, one of the most renowned in the world, welcomes skaters from all over the world. Sébastien Soldevila is responsible for everything related to acrobatic lifts. In short, he knows a bit about the ice, its dangers and its quirks.
PHOTO CATHERINE LEFEBVRE, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
The director Sébastien Soldevila has already designed a show on ice for the Cirque du Soleil.
In Cadence, the skid level is very high. It’s a spectacle for the whole family, where skating is as close to the circus as the X Games can be.
Sébastien Soldevila, director of Cadence
Put to danger
Kevin Lapierre is one of the extreme skaters who will show off their talent to slide down ramps and jump an impressive number of barrels. “For 12 years, I was an aggressive roller-blade professional,” says the 29-year-old. My first circus experiences, I lived them on Crystal. I participated in between 750 and 850 performances around the world. »
How would he describe this new show? “It’s a mixture of circus and extreme sports presented at a brisk pace. The same ramps are used as in Crystal ; you sometimes find yourself in the air 15 feet above the ground. At this height, jumping might not be as scary as landing…especially on ice!
Cadence will be presented from February 24 to March 5 (with a break on February 28 and March 1er March), with two performances per evening (at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.). Entry is free and will be on a first-come, first-served basis. The vaccination passport will be required.