by Sean McCutcheon

 

The jugglers who come to Montreal this summer for the 45th IJA Annual Festival

will turn Serge Trempe's dream into reality.

 

 

Trempe, a genial and energetic thirty­something-year-old, works in Montreal, handling audio and video tapes for Canada's government-owned broadcasting organization. Martial arts once served as the outlet for all the energy his job does not absorb. As he grew more bruised and middle-aged, however, he grew disenchanted with martial arts.

 

In 1985 he happened upon a juggler, Sylvain Duchesne, performing on a Montreal street, and so discovered a new pasttime.

 

Duchesne taught Trempe to juggle, and began to teach juggling as a leisure activity at Trempe's place of work. The journalists and producers there were less than enthusiastic, but Trempe was hooked on juggling, especially after the joyous week he spent at the IJA festival in Akron in 1987. The "ambiance" created by a "gang de bouffons" all doing wonderful things with balls, clubs and rings was "tellement fun," he recalls. So much fun, in fact, that he began to dream of hosting the IJA's annual party in Montreal.

 

Montreal is a place where - perhaps because of its French verve, perhaps because of its cultural affinities with Europe - passions for circus arts flourish. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the city had an intoxicatingly delightful street scene. You could stroll, for instance, around Place Jacques-Cartier, a cobblestone square surrounded by 17th-century stone buildings in Vieux Montreal, the old quarter, and watch many superb "amuseurs publiques" at work. They included Luc Tremblay and Andre Saint-Jean, also known as Les Cyclones, who dressed as waiters, mounted high unicycles and juggled champagne bottles.

 

One of the two notable institutions that sprang from Montreal's vibrant street scene is the Cirque du Soleil. In 1984, Guy Laliberte, a young fire-breather who had performed on the streets and who has a gift for organizing and persuading governments and corporations to back his dreams, co­founded a new circus with a new style.

 

The Cirque du Soleil has no animal acts. Rather, it presents trapezists, equilibrists, tight-rope walkers, unicyclists, clowns, jugglers and similar artists in shows of great theatricality, originality and beauty. It has become more successful than its founders ever dreamed, and now tours and recruits acts internationally. However, the Cirque du Soleil found its acts originally in Montreal alone, including Les Cyclones and one of the most accomplished of Montreal's jugglers, Daniel Le Bateleur.

 

Le Bateleur, Daniel's stage name, is French for "tumbler" or "buffoon." It is also the French name for the first of the tarot cards, a card known in English as the magician. A magician since boyhood, Daniel Le Bateleur became interested in juggling when, as an 18-year-old, he saw a juggler on the streets of Montreal. He taught himself to juggle with the help of a book. "I never learned the traditional tricks," he said. "I've only been to one convention, in Europe in 1985. I love to meet other jugglers, but any gathering of people who are into one activity gets on my nerves. I work alone. I pushed the basics I knew to the limits through lots of head work, intense analysis and observation. I like to think of juggling as redirecting the movement of the balls. I provoke an accident, and the way I recover gives me a new trick."

 

Daniel has developed his unique, precise way with balls, and his skills as a clown, by busking in European and North American cities and working in festivals and cabarets. He toured with the Cirque du Soleil in 1986 and 1987, and will be with them again this summer in Japan.

 

The second notable institution to spring from Montreal's street scene is the Ecole Nationale de Cirque. Helped by government grants, a Montreal clown who had studied at the Hungarian Circus School began offering acrobatic and juggling classes with some gymnast friends in 1980. Their enterprise evolved into the only school in  North America to offer full-time training in circus arts and a wide range of complementary skills.

 

Students who specialize in juggling (including Serge Trempe's juggling teacher, Sylvain Duchesne, in 1987) must develop high-level technical skills largely on their own. Other than occasional workshops offered by the likes of Airjazz and the Gizmo Guys, the school does not offer advanced training in juggling.

 

When Trempe returned from Akron talking about forming a jugglers club in Montreal, Duchesnes was enthusiastic. Together they founded Les Jongleurs Associes du Quebec and began renting a gym on Sunday afternoons. They have met there every winter since then, practicing, learning and promoting juggling.

 

Trempe also stuck with his dream of bringing the IJA festival to Montreal. He first suggested it at the Denver festival in 1988, and repeated his appeal in Baltimore and in Los Angeles. Les Jongleurs Associes du Quebec became an IJA affiliate, and the club introduced several American jugglers to the charms of Montreal by hosting two regional festivals. The IJA board of directors finally decided, late in 1990, that Montreal would be the right site for its 45th annual festival.

 

Some of the 15 or so professional jugglers based in and around Montreal will be familiar to IJA members.  People who were in Fargo in 1980 will remember Michel Lauziere's funny routine in which, wearing a self-satisfied smile, he juggled a simple three ball cascade and won "bravos" from the audience for elementary tricks. The character he portrayed was self-parody. "I thought I was good," he said. "Then I began attending IJA conventions and realized I wasn't that good. But I began to improve."

 

Lauziere has toured 15 countries in the past three years with his solo show. His specialties are visual performances. He gets inside a big balloon and dances. He conducts music with a baton which is also a big pen, and with which he draws faces. His show also includes a three-ball routine tightly choreographed to music. He will serve as a spokesman for the Montreal festival.

 

Other Montreal-based professional jugglers who will be at the festival include graduates of the circus school such as Sylvain Duchesne with his gentleman-juggler routine; classically elegant stylist Christian Harel; gifted comic France Robert; and Yvan Roy, who is completing his sixth year at the school, perfecting a solo show in which he presents polished technique in the character of a demented showman.

 

IJA visitors will find that, as in other cities, some of the old magic has gone from the Montreal street scene as restaurants and jewelery sellers have expanded onto sidewalks, eliminating space jugglers once used. However, the city is still a place of gaiety and charm, and Place Jacques Cartier continues to welcome street performers. It's certain that it will come alive as never before when the IJA comes to town July 21 - 26!

 

Sean McCutcheon juggles and writes in Montreal.  He is the author of "Electric Rivers:  The Story of the James Bay Project."