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Circus city
Trapeze arts are replacing trash in Montréal's largest landfill, and
transforming a neighbourhood into a big-top capital of the world
By CRAILLE MAGUIRE GILLIES
It is a Saturday afternoon, and I am sitting
beside a wide-eyed six- or seven-year-old girl
who reminds me of Pippi Longstocking. She
is spritely and whimsical, dressed in a green
jumper, her hair fashioned into pigtails threaded
with a bent coat hanger so that they stick out 90
degrees from her head. Along with a dozen or so
others in this fluorescent-lit classroom in one of
Montréal's newest performance venues, we are
kneading balls of clay into rough likenesses of ourselves. Over these clay moulds, we will lay
gooey, wet strips to make papier-mâché masks for
a Haitian-inspired carnival.
An instructor inspects our progress. "Ah,
Pinocchio," he says, referring to the long,
pointy nose I have just stuck on my egg-shaped
clay face. Dozens of finished masks made by
previous groups cover a nearby table. Some
look like ghouls; others have horns. None
resemble humans. But they are charmingly
amateurish, reminiscent of folk art,
and they represent the ambitious
but phenomenally successful goal
of Tohu, la Cité des arts du cirque,
to democratize culture.
Formed in 1999 by the Canadian
circus arts network, the National Circus School and Cirque du Soleil, Tohu is
an organization with the simple goal to make
Montréal one of the world's big-top hot spots. Its
mandate has since expanded to include revitalizing
the former limestone quarry and municipal
dump on which the organization's four buildings,
including a cylindrical 840-seat performance hall,
now sit and giving people in the neighbourhood
of Saint-Michel, where the complex is located, a
sense of cultural ownership.
For related stories, facts and
figures, visit CG's Exploration
Online
To comment on this issue, e-mail editor@canadiangeographic.ca
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