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 It is the Cirque life for them July 6, 2006 Want to be an acrobat, juggler, or contortionist? Luckily, you don’t have to go far to learn how
By Dean Lisk Grabbing the grease pencil from her makeup bag, Anais Guimond draws a line down the centre David Louch’s face, carving around his nose. She grabs the plastic cup holding silver paint she mixed a few minutes earlier, and begins applying it to the right side, covering the area from his ear to the line. “Look up,” the owner of Atlantic Cirque tells him, applying the colouring to the crease under his eye. “Circus means something different to people in Halifax than it does for me,” says Guimond, who is preparing Louch and two other students for their Canada Day weekend performances on the Halifax waterfront. It’s a chance for them to show off the skills they’ve learned in the last few months at the circus school, located in Burnside. Open since September 2003, the school teaches students the ins-and-outs, and flips and bends of the cirque world. “Circus, for people here, is the fair, the rides, and the clowns — which is not what we do. For us, circus is performing arts,” Guimond says. “People don’t always get the idea of a circus school being acrobatics, trapeze, contortion, juggling and unicycles. That’s why we use the word ‘cirque,’ because people know Cirque du Soleil.” Her students range from three to 65 years old; kids who want to learn to juggle and adults looking for an alternative to days spent sweating in the gym. “A lot of students are people who don’t necessarily fit into team sports,” says Guimond, who discovered the cirque arts after quitting gymnastics. She liked the floor exercises, but didn’t like being forced to do the beam exercises. While she, and her staff, teach students the skills they need, she leaves the creativity up to them. “I teach the technique, but anything outside that, I don’t teach them. I let them create their own little moves with their hands,” says Guimond, who has performed with Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. “Every now and then, you see them add something to a routine, and it’s ‘Ooh, that was new.’” Standing straight and rigid, and with his head tilted downward, Louch is trying to keep his partner, Steven Bourque, balanced on his shoulders. They are literally neck-to-neck. Their arms stick straight out from their sides. Louch’s feet touch the ground. Bourque’s feet touch the sky. They are mirror images of each other. They move slow and steady during their routine. Each foot and hand placement is exact. It looks unworldly. “It’s a pretty big rush — it’s a blast,” says Louch, who has been learning to hand balance — the name used to describe this kind of gymnastics — for the last eight months. “Having an audience watching you gets your adrenaline going.” A graduate of the theatre program at Dalhousie University, the 22-year-old started attending the circus school because he was interested in learning how to add a physical element to his acting training. “I think this is something everyone wants to do, it’s just not something you often get a chance to do,” says the Halifax resident, who is also the taller of the duo. “There is so much trust between you and your partner. You always know what the other person is thinking, just from how they hold their body. It’s a non-spoken communication.” “There is definitely a zoning-out that happens,” says Bourque, 23. “We are so focused on your body. There is something about circus that you can’t really articulate, it affects you on a primal level.” Guimond’s stare is directed at the next performance, 15-year-old Kelsey Ivory. The Tantallon resident is a contortionist, and is bending and twisting her way into the heart of the audience gathered behind the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. “Kelsey is going to National Circus School in Montreal for their summer camp,” says the instructor. “I have another student going too; it tells me I am doing something right.” When Guimond moved to Halifax five years ago, she was surprised to learn there was no circus school in the city — especially when there has been a Busker Festival in Halifax for two decades. Anyone can learn, she says, all it takes is patience. “The first step in circus is the biggest step. Once you reach that step, all the other steps comes a lot faster. “You just need to be flexible and do some basics, then you can do the incredible moves. “You can’t run unless you learn to walk — it’s the same thing.” To Learn More In Person:: Members of Atlantic Cirque are operating a Kids Zone at the Dragon Boat Festival on Lake Banook on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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