Artist Angela Laurier, who wowed Quebec with her contortions, acrobatics and tightrope choreography during the early days of Cirque du Soleil, died last week at the age of 62. A pioneering artist who opened important paths for creative and original circus, for distortion and for a certain political view in the circus and on the circus, in the opinion of her peers. Memories.
“She had a powerful and beautiful presence,” emphasizes Gilles Ste-Croix, co-founder of Cirque du Soleil. In 1988 in the show The circus reinventedwhich would establish the spirit of Cirque du Soleil, Angela Laurier played the Queen of the Night.
“He was the central character. She really transformed, she became a spider. She was very focused, she always played personally, intimately. »
“Before, in Quebec, the art of twisting came from Asia,” continues Mr. Ste-Croix. It was special to see a little Quebec girl – she was very small and very young – doing it. »
“She broke the mold of distortions,” says director Alice Ronfard, “that are traditionally done by very young girls. She made him a tool of sensuality and politics, with her screaming body, her brashness, her delinquency, her punk side. »
“Already in what she proposed, which was not just a series of movements and distortions, she paved the way,” says Andréane Leclerc, a distortion performance artist.
“She sided with the creative circus and author’s circus very early on. She is a strong woman and she persevered. Even today, when you approach 30 years in the circus… Phew. It’s old! Angela has been playing for over 40 years. » She had more projects and ideas for plays.
“The theatricality of it, the choreographic aspect, very danceable, mixed with distortion, was the forerunner of that,” claimed 7 fingers of the hand co-founder Isabelle Chassé in turn.
Make the distortion imaginable
A ball child, a member of the Laurier tribe of nine children, including her actress sisters Charlotte and Lucie, Angela Laurier trained in gymnastics at a very young age.
Competitions, musical comedies and filming of a cult TV series Pumpkin pop they are part of the daily life of his youth. Then she “appeared at the embryonic circus school, at that time on rue Papineau”, where she worked with Guy Caron, recalls Gilles Ste-Croix.
His circus debut followed, first in Belgium in 1984, before returning to Cirque du Soleil the following year. She is 22 years old. She performed in those legendary years, until 1988.
“She has already challenged the issues of profit making through spectacle,” notes Alice Ronfard. She wanted to participate in people-based projects. She had a big mouth, a unique madness that belonged only to her. And we sat her down. We broke it. It’s hopeless. »
Jinny Jacinto and Mme Chassé, who were the next quartet of contortionists in Cirque du Soleil, starting with A new experience, saw their children’s hearts marked by Angela Laurier. She had her arms out wide and said ‘You’re next,’ says Mme Jacinto. She was the one who made it conceivable for me to be a contortionist. »
Being broken
Angela Laurier then stars as Puck in a vision directed by Robert Lepage of Dreaming of a summer night by Shakespeare. At the turn of the 2000s, she began to develop her own writing for the body and the stage.
Show My big brother, directed by Michel Dallaire in 1999, will be followed by half a dozen productions. These circus autofictions, autobiographies told with many bodies or very personal documentaries, will be performed regularly in France, somewhat less so in Quebec.
Also at the turn of the 2000s, she moved to France, where the creative circus is more funded, “but where the hierarchies are much sharper,” laments Alice Ronfard. “But what did she go there to do?” There she ended up in isolation. »
It is his boldness that I will keep inside me. When I want to destroy everything, I think of her and who will I think of.
She began a fruitful collaboration with choreographer François Verret, connected with contemporary circus artists in France, and less often in Quebec. Here we could see 2010 I wish I could laughdirected by Lucie Laurier, performed with her brother Dominique, who suffers from schizophrenia.
Weirseen at La Chapelle Theatre 2009, is also a representation of this lineage. “I was quite broken,” the artist said at the time Duty present this intimate performance on the effect of the father’s depression, treated with electroshocks.
In 2012, she created Beast Angel in Subsistances de Lyon, a rotating show, always autobiographical, mixing circus, theater, singing and rock’n’roll. “Angela, Angela, you’ve got some nice leftovers to serve before we eat them,” she sang.
He also participates in cultural activities in reintegration and in prison.
“I will keep his audacity in me,” concludes Alice Ronfard. When I want to destroy everything, I think of her and who will I think of. She had a unique madness, the joy of living through laughter, and at the same time, it is unusual, the inability to calm her own soul. »
Actress Lucie Laurier shared the pain of her bereavement on Facebook. “We surround our mother with all our love, too often tested,” she wrote.