Guillaume Blais soars over the ice in Crystal

23 Sep 2023 -
Headshot photo by Yagub Allahverdiyev 
Crystal photos by Anabela D. Sousa
Aerial Chains at Le Monastère photos by Caroline Thibault

"I'm a big guy," says trapeze artist Guillaume Blais, "Six feet. I'm the biggest. So I'm a catcher of course." He notes that "most catchers are square and don't move." However Blais also studied dance so he definitely moves. Which comes in handy, not only in his current gig, but also in creating his own projects.  Blais is talking to me from Australia where he is on tour with the Cirque du Soleil show Crystal. Being a very Canadian sounding fusion of circus acts and figure skating, Crystal begins a North American tour, like Corteo, in hockey heartland Oshawa. "I'm looking forward to being back," says Blais. He has lived much of his life on the road, travelling around the world with various circuses, and this is the first time that he will spend Christmas in his hometown ,when Crystal plays Montreal for the holiday season.

But Blais will be in Montreal before that. He is one of 14 artists who created and run La Monastere, a circus cabaret. "We were looking to settle somewhere and we have a partnership with an Anglican church. The reverend is a visionary who was looking to bring back community even if it wasn't religious. We run the church six days a week, to save it. It's falling apart a little bit, like the walls. We do five productions a year including for Fierte, Montreal's Pride festival." It is in this intimate space that Blais developed his Aerial Chains act. "I created this act during the pandemic when I felt like we were all chained at home. There are not many people around the world doing this discipline and the ones I know are very traditional. I really wanted to get out of the box with this act and find a balance of lightness in this rough apparatus and during this hard time. My first presentation was set to very poetic and soft music that was actually recorded live in a church."

Blais came to the circus in a roundabout fashion. "I never liked sports or anything physical," he says. "I was a hairdresser making wigs for Cirque du Soleil. One day I saw an acrobat warming up and it sparked something in me. Though people laughed, I auditioned for circus school. I was flexible enough to get in." Ten years later he is the headliner in Crystal. "This is my second contract on ice," he says. "Before the pandemic I was in another Cirque show, Axel." Blais's first Cirque show was Paramour on Broadway where he worked with director Shana Carroll of The 7 Fingers (Triptyque, Cuisine & Confessions) who spearheaded Crystal. "I'm barefoot but I never go on the ice," says Blais. "We're above. We do hand to hand, I throw the flyers and lift the skaters on and off the ice. It's the closing act of the show. It's a really beautiful act." 

Crystal is a little different from other Cirque shows says Blais. "It has a very clear story, with a voiceover. A teenager struggles with her life and goes on a journey to find herself through the ice." Blais also points out that it is a family show built for arenas. "It's a very big platform," he says but not necessarily one for his other passion. "I am a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, there are any of us in the circus, and I want to speak up. For the artists, the community is very strong. There are never issues, we are more free, it's an artistic world. But my concerns started with my ex-partner who was in the office part. For him it was a struggle. For Crystal the image I'm projecting is very masculine" but in his Le Monastere work there is more activism.  But there is a bonus that comes with his one year Crystal contract: Blais's partner. "He's also in the circus but never on the same show." Until now. "This has never happened to me before," says Blais laughing, but he is looking forward to this tour and seeing where it leads.