Urban dance meets circus in 'Cirque Éloize'

Cirque Éloize isn't as well-known around Chicago as other famed French Canadian circus troupes like Cirque du Soleil or Seven Fingers.

In fact, people often have to be corrected on how to pronounce the troupe's name, which is a French Canadian term for a lightning strike. The woman's name “Eloise” is incorrect; Éloize should be spoken like “El-waz”.

But Cirque Éloize founder Jeannot Painchaud hopes to raise audience awareness about his 18-year-old Montreal-based circus with his seventh and latest show “Cirque Éloize iD” (pronounced “eye-dee,” not “id”).

“We wanted an important place to launch the show in the U.S. market,” said Painchaud during a recent telephone interview. Though “Cirque Éloize iD” has played a couple of smaller American cities, Painchaud says Chicago is where the current tour officially launches.

Partially developed in South Korea in 2009, “Cirque Éloize iD” debuted last year in Montreal in its current form before heading off on a Canadian tour.

“Particularly what I wanted to expose in this show is urban dance meets circus,” Painchaud said.

Though many people wouldn't connect hip hop artists or break dancers with circus performers, Painchaud found a connection that united the 16 performers from seven different countries who make up the cast of “Cirque Éloize iD.”

Instead of coming solely from established circus families, he says, students from Montreal's famed National Circus School often worked the streets as buskers to develop routines and hone their skills. Painchaud saw similarities in the way that hip hop artists also develop skills as rappers and dancers in urban street settings.

“The circus performers and hip hop dancers used to be out on the streets, but now they're inside the theater performing together,” Painchaud said. The clannish nature of the two kinds of performers also prompted him to create a plot thread of two opposing camps staking out turf in an urban landscape. Sometimes they meet to spar, while other times they end up inspiring each other to higher physical feats.

There's even a “Romeo and Juliet” (or “West Side Story”) element to some of the show's pairings, like a contortionist who catches the eye of a beat box performer.

“That's one of the things that I wanted to show in our production,” Painchaud said about international performers breaking down racial barriers. “There's people meeting from everywhere and they are multidisciplinary artists.”

Like shows put on by the American company Cirque Dreams, Cirque Éloize also specializes in circus spectaculars staged within traditional proscenium theaters. But one element that sets “Cirque Éloize iD” apart is its often mind-boggling projected video animation that has the performers interacting in frequently surreal ways.

“The video projection for me was to create the environment itself from original sketches and the idea of creating a city in a cartoon way,” Painchaud said. “We want to create some unbalance and destabilization.”

Painchaud is also proud of the fact that “Cirque Éloize iD” features an original music score in a multitude of international languages.

“We are people from different countries,” he said. “We are working together around a project and living together and we express this onstage.”

<b>"Cirque Éloize iD”</b>

<b>Location: </b>Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St., Chicago, (800) 775-2000 or <a href="http://www.broadwayinchicago.com" target="_blank">broadwayinchicago.com</a>

<b>Showtimes:</b> 7:30 p.m. opening Tuesday, April 26, and also Friday, May 6; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday through May 8.

<b>Tickets: </b>$20-$75