With ANIMAL, Cirque Alfonse takes us on a journey of discovery through a series of slightly surreal farm fables served up with a touch of irreverence, impressive virtuosity and the company’s familiar comic touch. In this re-invented agricultural world, the farm is turned upside down and the barn turned inside out!
A gentleman farmer has surrounded himself with some familiar but slightly outlandish creatures: the chickens have teeth, the ducks are slightly menacing and the cows are kicking up a fuss. In this “farm fantasy”, the imagination conjures up stories from childhood, rural life proves to be both energetic and poetic and clichés are joyfully turned on their head.
Yet again, the clan of family and friends that make up Cirque Alfonse has favoured its multidisciplinary approach where circus, song, dance and theatre all come together, driven by original live music … an irresistible mix of trad and soul that the troupe calls ‘agricultural funk!
A production for young and old alike, ANIMAL is the farm gone haywire!
About Cirque Alfonse
The company, which unites the Carabinier-Lépine family and friends, gets its name from Saint-Alphonse-Rodriguez, its municipality of origin in Lanaudière. The Québec fibre is central to each Cirque Alfonse creations as the troupe draws on national folklore for themes, to which a modern touch is added.
The Alfonse clan has captured the hearts the public in 2011 with its lumber camp in Timber!, and its cabaret electro-traditional cabaret in Barbu in 2014 followed by Tabarnakin 2017. After having toured the globe several times and experienced worldwide success, the troupe returns to give you have an unforgettable time.
Production : Cirque Alfonse Artistic direction : Julie and Antoine Carabinier-Lépine Director : Alain Francoeur Music and songs : David Simard Scenography : Nicolas Descôteaux Light concept : Nicolas Descôteaux Costumes : Geneviève Beauchamps
Cirque Alfonse’s BARBU Cabaret delves into the origins of the circus in Montreal at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Imagine a fairground, where spectators are left spellbound by remarkable performances and outrageous feats, simple curiosities and unexpected eccentricities. Political correctness has no place in the mayhem of this show. In scene after scene where music, video, circus and general craziness collide, each performer wows the audience with a showcase of spectacular skills. May the best beard win! Backed by a frenetic electro-trad band, the Cirque Alfonse clan strays dangerously close to the edge in this exuberant circus rave.
Barbu has been presented in Edinburgh Fringe in 2015 and 100 representations at the London’s Wunderground summer 2016
The Times (London) ****
Fuelled by a wonderfully enlivening folk-rock score, this is joyously naughty, laugh-out-loud witty and unpretentiously camp…
Theupcoming.com *****
Hilarious, random and deliriously sexy, BARBU is the most captivating alternative circus show that anyone could hope to see this summer.
Britishtheater.com *****
It is a perfect way to lose yourself for an evening. Strange, curious, sexy, quirky and an enormous amount of fun. There is even an opportunity to buy shots and partake in a cheeky raffle. So what are you waiting for? Book your tickets now. This is essential viewing this Summer.
The company
Cirque Alfonse is a circus company from Saint-Alphonse-Rodriguez in the province of Quebec, established in 2005. Its founding members have all worked with some of the most renowned “nouveau cirque” companies around the world. This young company is comprised of a team of professional acrobats graduated from the École nationale de cirque de Montréal, as well as a professional dancer, an Grandpa Alain and three talented and versatile musicians. This brave and creative group of young performers is blazing a creative path that no one has yet dared to explore, blending the arts and techniques of the circus and infusing them with the most picturesque facets of traditional Quebec folklore.
Dolce Vita Spectacles represents Machine de Cirque only in Canada
The circus invades the museum!
Seven zany acrobats and an electrifying musician take in a monochrome exhibit. With a creative spark, they set off an explosion of color. In mocking defiance of convention, these wacky and endearing characters eagerly explore the exhibition inside out.
Dizzying feats, astonishing discoveries, poetic liberties, and a serious dose of some silly good fun come together to fuel this ode to creativity.
Enjoy this exhilarating feast for the senses.
Experience La Galerie !
”[…] A gallery devoid of colour is slowly filled with vibrant hues, amid live music and acrobatics […] ”
Machine de Cirque is a Québec City-based circus company that packs high doses of dizzying feats, powerful emotions, poetry, intelligence and humour into its innovative and original circus shows. The Company’s ingenious and deeply human creations skillfully blend the highest levels of contemporary circus with musical and theatrical performances. Driven by this unifying vision, Machine de Cirque’s unique approach to the circus arts produces shows that dazzle the mind, touch the heart and move the spirit.
Barka is a show where circus arts, dance and music blen, by the creators of the group Gypsy Kumbia.
In an extraordinary festive chaos, BARKA is a celebration of life and a call to hope and responsible freedom. Afro-Colombian percussion, Balkan melodies, dance and circus merrily intertwine in a show filled with a delirious energy and richness of sound, vision and senses.
We are all in a boat. Explorers, migrants or survivors, it doesn’t matter, we are gone. The journey has begun, each of us in search of our dream. But we are all floating together in motion, as a big storm is predicted on the horizon. Let’s make sure our boat doesn’t sink!
In an extraordinary festive chaos, BARKA is a celebration of life and a call to hope and responsible freedom. Afro-Colombian percussion, Balkan melodies, dance and circus merrily intertwine in a show filled with a delirious energy and richness of sound, vision and senses.
Explorers, migrants or survivors, it doesn’t matter, the journey has begun!
From A to Z, we are suspended to the lips of the narrator who explains the course of the situation and we always remain in the joy thanks to the more than catchy music.
Le Devoir, Montreal
…everything is a cause for celebration in this exciting show, whose watchword is fusion
La Presse, Montreal
Barka is a multidisciplinary show mixing dance, circus art and musical performances that fuse the effervescent sound of gypsy brass bands with Afro-Colombian percussion.
Ici Radio-Canada
Credits
Lenght: 75 minutes without intermission Diretots : Patrick Léonard (7 Fingers) and Ricard Soler Mallol Artistic Direction : Juan Sebastian Mejia Managament : Carmen Ruiz Technical Direction : Juan Sebastian Quiros Creation and production : Girovago – l’art en mouvement Équipe de production : Julio Miranda, Eli Levinson, Nassica Boukaria
Musical Direction : Aurélien Tomasi et Anit Ghosh Arrangements : Aurélien Tomasi Original music : Gypsy Kumbia Orchestra Choreographies : Carmen Ruiz, Sonia Bustos Dance counselor : Andrea Niño
Artists : Juan Sebastian Mejia (voice and percussions) Carmen Ruiz (dance) Brittany Gee-More (roue Cyr and rope), Alexie Maheux (chinese mast), Nathan Biggs-Penton (juggling), Anit Ghosh (violin, guitars, voice), Aurélien Tomasi (clarinet and saxophone), Chantal Urbain (accordion and voice), Ivan Bamford (percussions), Blanche Moisan-Méthé (tuba), Bertrand Margelidon (trumpet and voice)
Created with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and La Tohu, as well as the support in the research stages of the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres de Québec, Le Conseil des Arts de Montréal, Le Théâtre Aux Écuries, Le Théâtre Le Paradox and MAI, Montréal Arts Interculturels.
We would also like to thank our families and friends, our ancestors who have carried us to this point, our present relations who teach us so much, and our children to whom we owe a living future of freedom and joy.
GIROVAGO is known for the creation and direction of Gypsy Kumbia Orchestra (GKO) as well as a multitude of other projects in which Carmen and Juan Sebastian have collaborated as co-creators and producers such as the film FAIT VIVIR (Biarritz, 2019), the song and video EL GRITO Colombia Montreal (2020), La Take Out Lab, Studio D 325 and the Family Dance Ball. In 2022, thanks to an invitation from La TOHU in Montreal, GIROVAGO presented its new creation BARKA, a show that brings together 11 artists on stage and mixes music, dance and circus in a festive chaos that calls for hope.
NYX revisits archetypal elements of femininity, rooted in Johanne Madore’s childhood memories of her family’s women’s clothing shop and business: the world of women who evolved there, the small hands of the seamstresses, guided by the words of her grandmother, matriarch reigning over the basement storage where fabrics, skins and furs were piled up in large folds
Embodying greatness of soul, wisdom and passing on, the death of the elder 106 years old triggers the creative process of the NYX project, named after the Greek goddess of the night. From then on, the two become one: embroiderers of memories and sometimes of fabrications, shamans able to guide souls lost between death and birth, between Eros and Thanatos, through the meanders of the forest, through the nocturnal of life, through the kingdom of NYX.
NYX is a contemporary hybrid work blending circus arts, contemporary dance and visual arts. The writing, research and creation of NYX spanned over four years. The world premiere was presented at Le Diamant in Québec City in October 2022.
In a dreamlike and mythological universe, six women radiate their light and sensuality through breathtaking aerial acts, bewitching choreographies, their bodies intertwined in original acrobatic sculptures.
Nyx will bewitch and envelop the spectator in a luminous and poetic warmth.
@Stéphane Bourgeois
Leela Massuret
@Stéphane Bourgeois
Mathilde K. Richer
@Stéphane Bourgeois
Mathilde K. Richer
@Stéphane Bourgeois
Mathilde K. Richer, Catherine Beaudet, Leela Massuret, Laurie Bérubé, Andrea Falcon Martinez
@Stéphane Bourgeois
Mathilde K. Richer, Catherine Beaudet, Leela Massuret, Megan Leigh Rennels, Andrea Falcon Martinez
An interdisciplinary practitioner of the performing arts, Johanne Madore has forty years of experience as a performer, choreographer, director and writer. She has performed locally, nationally and internationally in dance, theater, opera, circus, film and performance with companies such as Carbone 14, Ex Machina, O Vertigo Danse, 4D Arts, Le Cirque Éloize, Corpuscule danse, etc. She is co-founder with the visual artist Pierre Przysiezniak of the collectives Les Intercesseurs, Les Rugissants and today Le Collectif Chimère. Their collaborative work, in search of new forms of practice and scenic aesthetics, pays particular attention to the sensitive relationship between the body, materials and the narratives that emerge: Antennae (1998), La jeune femme et la mort (1999) and Monarca (2004), NYX, etc. A passionate creator who cherishes collective intelligence, Johanne Madore is concerned with contributing the talents and knowledge of the artists invited into the creative process. Since 2006, she has contributed to the emergence of a contemporary Quebec circus by training and inspiring the next generation of circus artists at the National Circus School while undertaking a cycle of creations hybridizing acrobatic gesture, visual arts and dance. Her work has been presented at several international events, including: Les Mandalas du désir (2008); Croisé (2012), which has received several international invitations, including La Grainerie in Toulouse and the Cirque-Théâtre d’Elboeuf (FR); Les Étinceleurs (2016); Les constellations amoureuses (2017); Barok XX1 (2019); and the film “La somme de nos rêves” in international competition at the FIFA – art film festival (2021)
Pierre Przysiezniak
Pierre Przysiezniak, visual artist and researcher, started off in the graphic arts before exhibiting his hybrid narrative works in Montreal’s contemporary art galleries in the early 80’s. Passioned by the craft of painting backdrops, he moved on to an apprenticeship at the opera, becoming through the years a master scenic craftsperson and initiating a cycle of explorations of new processes in stage design, which he approaches as a visual artist sensitive to materials, and their intrinsic expressiveness. Sculpting space and volumes in atonement with the humans present, he unravels his visual experimentations on stage through his personal and collaborative interdisciplinary work. He has lectured, coached and mentored scenic painting and design arts at the Université du Québec in Montréal as well as at the National Theater School of Canada. Since 2010 he has been pursuing a drawing practice he describes as « nanographic, biomimetic and quantic », in quest of the movements and structures of Nature of which we are made of. He has organised and animated exchange workshops between scientists and artists, published, presented papers and participated in round-tables about his visual and stage art and is the recipient of numerous grants, prizes and residencies in the graphic, visual, interdisciplinary, theatre and circus arts.
A Collectif Chimère Production
Credits
On stage: Catherine Beaudet, Laurie Bérubé, Mathilde K. Richer, Leela Masuret, Andrea Ramirez Falcon, Leigh Rennels
Artistic director, author, stage director and Johanne choreographer: Johanne Madore
Acrobatic sculptures, set and props, technical assistance and dramaturgical consulting: Pierre Przysiezniak
Acrobatic choreographies: Johanne Madore with the collaboration of the artists
Final music and sound design : Antoine Bédard
Music composing and editing: Claude Fradette
Sound research, field recordings and additional soundtracks: Pierre Przysiezniak
Rig design and head rigger: Sébastien Robillard
Production assistant, stage manager assistant and rigger : Tanya Burka
Light Design Stéphane Ménigot
Technical direction, sound and light operations: Rodolphe St-Arneault
Costumes design : Johanne Madore
Creation of the costumes : Michael Slack with the initial support of Josée Madore, White Label, Isabelle Roger and Marie Laflamme / Apparat Confection Créative
Dance coach : Mireille Leblanc
Acrobatic coach : Nadia Richer
Management : Johanne Madore & Pierre Przysiezniak
Punctual support : Diagramme Gestion Culturelle, La Cie Des Autres
With the support of :
Le Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec, Canada Arts Council, Le Conseil des arts de Montréal, Rideau
