To celebrate its 30e anniversary, Cirque Éloize is making a big comeback. The troupe announced on Wednesday that it was acquiring a performance hall in the Magdalen Islands, where it was born.
After the great success of his show Between sky and sea in Madelinan lands last summer, Cirque Éloize is doing it again and offering a new version this summer in the disused church of Havre-Aubert, the village of the ancestors of Jeannot Painchaud, the director of the company. “We have a brand new staging by Félix Dagenais”, underlines the latter.
The show, which combines storytelling, traditional music, poetry and circus, has not yet been presented outside the Islands. He will visit 16 cities in Quebec this fall, including Montreal, before heading to Europe.
Between sky and sea is notably accompanied by the music of the group Le Suroît, founded in 1976 and also from the Magdalen Islands — “the Quebec group that has played the longest without interruption”, continues Mr. Painchaud. Cirque Éloize itself, he recalls, began with seven Madelinot acrobats.
The company’s new performance hall is called La Seine, in reference to herring fishing nets, and should have 450 seats. It will also host conferences this summer by Madelinot photographer and diver Mario Cyr, marine life specialist Arctic.
Jeannot Painchaud has other plans in mind: he personally bought the old school in the village, which he intends to transform into an inn. Creative residencies, co-working and yoga workshops should be held there. “It’s a very big project” of some $20 million in total, he says.
It must be said that the pandemic has hit Cirque Éloize hard; Mr. Painchaud does not believe that the company will regain its pre-pandemic rhythm for a few years. “It was very painful,” he admits. This forced stop, on the other hand, allowed him to reconnect with his roots in Madelinot. “Without the pandemic, I wouldn’t have had this time to reflect” to realize this dream, he says.
In the meantime, Cirque Éloize has diversified its activities. It will notably present the immersive exhibition Red 2100 at the Montreal Planetarium this summer. This experience proposes to combine art and science to project oneself into a life on Mars in 2100. The whole thing will take place in five rooms of the Planetarium.