Rare are the circus productions whose list of collaborators includes a historian. However, Martin Landry, a high school teacher and seasoned communicator (we owe him, among other things, the podcast series Past date ?), is closely associated with the show Have a good trip of Cirque Éloize. Because he served as an advisor to director and author Fernand Rainville, whose texts he reread to ensure their historical accuracy. But also, or even more importantly, because he provided the creative team with a plethora of facts and anecdotes related to Dalhousie Station and its brief glory days, which lasted only a few years, until other larger railway buildings were built. It is this building, transformed into a warehouse until the National Circus School of Montreal moved in in 1986 and then Cirque Éloize in 2004, that is at the heart of the most recent opus of this thirty-year-old company, as well as the podcast series of the same name that preceded it.
This “appetizer”, as Martin Landry describes it, available on Ohdio, is available in a fiction, signed by Michel Marc Bouchard (of which the two main characters, a young columnist from the newspaper, were kept in the stage production) The homeland and a telegram delivery man on a bicycle), as well as three short informative episodes created and narrated by the historian. To set the context for the advent of the station and avoid the show being weighed down by an excess of didacticism, “there is a pedagogy to be done, either upstream or downstream,” he explains. It is all the more important to avoid dwelling on it unduly, believes Fernand Rainville, since the performances (lasting 60 minutes) are of a roving nature: “When the spectators are standing, the more the show goes on, the fewer words it has to have and the more active, joyful and… sparkling it is!” he says, pronouncing this last term while waving his hands in the manner of Bob Fosse.
It is therefore the concoction of an alloy of magic and history that the director aspires to. In this, he continues, in a way, the “documentary” work begun with Guy! Guy! Guy!, the show from Cirque du Soleil’s tribute series dedicated last year to hockey legend Guy Lafleur. “In this context, there was a life to tell, a side biopic, with archives. But this idea stuck with me: there is a way to integrate archives and other processes [informatifs] » without it all leading to “a thesis”. In this immersive universe exploiting the technology of mapping 360º, it will notably discuss the beginnings of the telegraph (its submarine cable transformed into a smooth rope), the arrival of electricity (a lamppost acting as a suspended mast) and other innovations specific to the end of the 19th century.e century.
Mirror effect
There are uncanny similarities between the era described in Have a good trip and the current era: a housing crisis, inflation causing the food bill to rise exponentially… and even an epidemic (of smallpox), compulsory hygiene measures and anti-vaccination demonstrations. How to explain this symmetry? “It is the tragedy of humanity to do the same things over and over again,” says Martin Landry. As long as we are not more educated, more cultured, until we put more philosophy into our lives… We are still waging wars, that says it all. »
A greater place given to history in our societies would certainly help in his opinion, as would a more vibrant transmission of this subject in class: “We tend to let publishing houses and the Ministry of Education be the only sources [de l’histoire enseignée]. » If it is necessary to follow the ministerial program, it would nevertheless be possible, according to him, to find more imaginative and exciting ways of doing so. This is why he made sure to include in the podcast Have a good trip third and fourth secondary material. “We must put more history into our artistic creations, of course,” he maintains, “but they must also be accessible to be used in a school context. We would all benefit in Quebec if we did it more. »
The historian is not the only one to perceive the potential for mobilization and edification of the performing arts. “I think back to the eminently political theater of Jean-Claude Germain, who taught me at the National Theater School,” notes Fernand Rainville. Yes, he had [un parti pris]but it still had a richness there, that of trying to dissect the past to understand the issues of today.”
The reigning duality in the 19th centurye century, between wealthy English-speaking bosses and penniless French-speaking workers prompted the director to propose a bilingual show. The information overlaps from one line to the next, he explains, so that each language group can come away from the show with the majority of the information. Simultaneous translation would have been tedious, he says, and alternating performances in both languages would have been too costly. The artist of Franco-Ontarian origin, aware of the audacity of his “gamble”, fully assumes it: “I made the choice to come to Quebec, I voted for something to happen and we said No. […] We can always turn things around, make decisions, move things forward. I believe it. It’s about taking charge and doing it, but if we don’t… we’re going to have to live with reality, and that’s it. We can’t help ourselves, but after that, don’t complain if a show is bilingual. I’m just not capable of double-talk anymore. »
A poem by Louis Riel “slammed” in French could therefore be followed by a reply in English by Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, for example, during this journey through time and towards the Pacific coast, aboard the very first train to have crossed Canada from east to west. This journey constitutes the last part of the show, “more playful”, according to Fernand Rainville. “So that people leave there with a smile.”