Animal-Free Canada

“I like animals,” says Jeannot Painchaud, artistic director of Quebec’s Cirque Éloize “but not onstage.”

With the big names in the U.S. circus industry under fire from animal-rights groups, Cirque Éloize (pronounced sir-kell-waz) shows what a circus looks like without lions, tigers and bears.

Painchaud, one of the troupe’s founders, says audiences should recognize parts of a traditional circus, and that it would be a mistake to call the company’s decision not to employ animals or animal trainers blatantly political.

The policy comes from the troupe’s training at L’Ecole Nationale de Cirque de Montreal, which instills a kind of circus theory that differs from what folks who are used to Barnum & Bailey might expect. “There is no tradition here of a circus [like that]. We have no culture related to animals and no contact with anyone who works with them,” he says. “I never get close to their world.”

He hints that he finds the legacy of trained animals in other circuses distasteful. “Some treat them well,” he says, “but there’s too much of a bad situation. I’ve seen things in circuses with animals I would not want to be a part of.”

There’s never been a big top. Cirque Éloize performs in theaters, much like a bus-and-truck Rent tour. “It is because we integrate art forms, like dance and theater,” Painchaud says.

Each of the company’s three previous tours was infused with its own theme. The current show, titled Nomade, was directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca. It’s described as “a nighttime carnival that journeys through the rituals of nomadic travelers from dusk to dawn.” But what, exactly, do performers do?

“We have clowns, we have acrobatics, and we defy the death,” Painchaud says. “For me, the circus is, like an athlete, to defy the death.”