Cirque Éloize Audition: Part V of *VII (Patreon)

Wednesday [AUDITION DAY], continued:

A tall, blonde woman in a long wool shawl came to the doors at 8:26am and ushered us all in. She introduced herself as Francine Tremblay –the woman I had spoken to on the phone on Monday afternoon. She recognized me from my application submission and I shook her hand warmly before turning off to the side to hang up my coat in the cloakroom.

My memory is slightly hazy from the adrenaline-fuelled rush of the day, but I'm pretty confident that she introduced herself to us all as heading up Éloize's Casting department. I definitely remember reeling slightly in that moment and thinking to myself, Well, I'm glad THAT phone call went the way it did then. First impressions and all that, right?

I spotted Glory at the back of the crowd, handed her her coffee, and made my way through the lobby to the tall double doors that led into main training area: a huge, high-ceilinged rectangular section of floor with an aerial point rigged in the centre on a 4-to-1 pulley and a bank of tables and chairs set off to one side for the casting team.

We walked through this area to the second section: slightly lower ceilings, multiple aerial points, a trampoline bed off to one side, and a Chinese pole already rigged and ready to go for the artists doing solos on that apparatus later in the day.   An assistant wheeled an old videocamera around on a tripod to the back corner of this secondary area and artists started peeling off, one-by-one, in no formal order to go through their vox pop.

They asked for our names, ages, where we're from, our major and minor disciplines, what our 'ideal circus life' looked like (as in, were we hoping for touring shows? shorter projects? one-off corporate events?), and if we had any 'hidden talents' to tell them about.

Francine called us all into the main, larger space. Most of our audition would be happening there. A group of artistic and creative directors greeted us, introducing themselves mainly in French (the anglophones in the crowd politely blinked and smiled glazed smiles) until finally one of them noted to the others that there were a few Americans in the crowd and the other began half-heartedly offering English translations of what they were saying.

They were welcoming us to the space, talking about their excitement at having an audition for the first time there since the pandemic started, and about their drive to discover new artists and talent to work with to fuel the creative projects they wished to explore in the near future and coming years. In general, the tone was a friendly one, and a casual one.

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The Bloc Danse was up first.

As we walked out onto the floor I thought about something that I'm pretty sure I picked up from this 10-year-old  "16 x 9: Getting Into Cirque" audition documentary (it's 45 minutes long and a great watch; I watched it a couple times when I was starting out in circus): a lot of the time, the creative higher-ups watching you at these auditions either already know what you're capable of, or they're going to be able to parse your technical and artistic skill level rapidly (like, within minutes).

But! They're watching for a million other tiny things in all the other moments that you're present in the room with them: how you interact with the other artists in the room; what your disposition is like; how you handle stress; how you handle short-notice changes; are you kind?; are you helpful?; do you have a good sense of humour?; do you have decent spatial awareness / can you adapt to another artist being in your 'space' bubble during a dance run, for example? etc.

It's not just about what you're doing; like everything in life, it's about how you're doing it.

I kept this front of mind as I walked out onto the floor with the rest of the artists. Even if I missed some beats in the choreography or fumbled a step or two, it would turn into a chance to demonstrate that I'd stay calm and/or fake-it-til-I-make-it kind of thing. They'd know I wasn't a trained dancer. But I could show them that I moved well, that I was happy to be there, and my general vibe.

I got to prove that right away: the artists started to spread out into 3 scraggly lines –– as far away from the casting table as possible. Nobody wants the front row in a dance audition, right?

Well, shit.

I took a spot right in front of Sonia Clarke, the dancer/choreographer leading this Bloc. A few other artists filtered up from the pack to my left and right, the group re-ordered into 4 lines now.

I might not be a dancer, but I was sure as hell game to try.

Sonia  led us through an Afrohouse dance warm-up that felt dangerously close to cardio (hrnggggg). My quads were burning within minutes and I was feeling pretty grateful for the 3 Afrohouse dance classes I took literally five years ago at the old City Dance Corps on Queen Street West in Toronto. The movements were vaguely familiar. I muddled along convincingly enough.

Next, Sonia took us through a short contemporary dance combination (4 counts of 8): we learned it as a group and then were divided up into three smaller groups to dance it out in front of the casting table.

All in all, it was actually ... not bad! And the instant high-energy output wiped the nervous, buzzing anxiety that we'd all carried in with us from lobby right out of the room. We all stood there panting and gulping down water as another one of the creatives at Éloize –Jesse Dryden– introduced himself to begin the 'Bloc Jeu'.

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'Bloc Jeu' turned out to be what I want to believe is what high school drama classes were like: a series of games designed to let us all show some improv chops and interact in smaller and larger dynamics with one another. (I never took drama in high school, so this is pure conjecture).

One of our improv games played on the perfectionist tendencies of circus artists: one at a time, we had to silently take a chair and find the perfect spot to put it down (but, naturally, have great difficulty in deciding what the 'perfect' spot was).

Another game saw Jesse throw a soft juggling ball into the centre of the room, arrange us at the edge of the floorspace, and then (one at a time) have us shut our eyes and march forward as confidently as possible to where we thought the ball was – and reach for it. 

"Look!" Jesse shouted loudly across the room as we began. "It is a task that requires skill, and involves risk! It's CIRCUS!" 

Ah, I thought to myself. A circus nerd.

A third saw us paired off in duos: we were told to walk by each other and then try to turn back to notice each other at the same time, as if realizing we'd actually walked by an old friend by accident. Then Jesse would modify the exercise: turn back to your old friend and notice them! but ... oh ... they stink; turn back to your old friend and notice them but you remember they owe you money!; okay, your partner is now a stranger -- turn back to them and DIE IN THEIR ARMS.

In short: much [professional] silliness ensued.

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The last of the group audition was the 'Bloc Acro'. Mercifully, they took some time to explain that it was informal; that if we weren't tumblers or gymnasts they didn't expect to see –or want us to try– anything outside our wheelhouse. 

They put some upbeat music on and it ended up being a somewhat informal "here's some other movement stuff you haven't seen yet from dance or the games section" type thing. 

Case in point: I had some absolutely spectacular cartwheels to show them with all the thrilling skill of a viciously competitive 6-year-old in gymnastics class and that was about it (I ran around the room upside down in a bridge for a bit, too); conversely, a guy named Momo (oh shit, turns out he's IG-famous) who gatecrashed the audition that morning (love it) showed us all what it looks like when you just walk into a room and turn off physics (seriously, go watch one of those IG videos). 

Next up: solo presentations. 

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Your next and final audition instalment will arrive in your inboxes on Friday at 11am EST! Until then, stay strange & wonderful!

XO Ess