Archive feature: Guillaume Saladin and Artcirq
2018 seems to be a year of important circus anniversaries: 250 years since Philip Astley created the first circus ring in the UK, 40 years that Laszlo Simet has been performing on the high wire and Semaphore, 25 years of Cirque Eloize, and 20 years of Artcirq, the circus set up in Igloolik in the Arctic Circle to try to combat the high suicide rate among young people there.
To mark Artcirqâs anniversary, we have chosen this feature â by The Widowâs Liz Arratoon â from 2005. We first met the inspirational Guillaume Saladin at the after-party for Cirque Eloizeâs show Nomade at the Barbican in London in 2003 and instantly became friends. Struck by his passion and commitment, I interviewed him â during a trip to Paris to see Nomade at the Folies Bergère â to learn about his plans, before he headed off to the frozen north. It was in the days of dictaphones, and just after weâd finished chatting for about an hour we noticed the tape had snapped! Drama! But Gui calmly said: âWeâll do it again.â
There cannot be many circus artists who would willingly give up the bright lights of showbusiness to spend a year living on an island in the Arctic Circle. But after touring with Cirque Eloize for the past three years and performing in its show, Nomade, almost 500 times, that is exactly what Guillaume Saladin is going to do. Seven years ago he set up a circus project in the tiny Inuit village of Igloolik. Saladin says: âItâs called Artcirq. I started it in June 1998, just before I started circus school, after two of my old friends committed suicide, to try to prevent further young people in Igloolik from doing the same. It had been like that for many years, a lot of suicides.â Since then the 32-year-old French Canadian has been back every year for up to three months at a time to teach his students more and to help them put on shows.
Now Saladin has been asked by the village to return to Igloolik to spend a year running the community centre, where the students train, and to provide workshops. He says: âIn July, after my last Nomade show in Christchurch, New Zealand, Iâll move to Igloolik to a little hut lent to me by the missionary. I will schedule next yearâs activity for ten artists that will end with the shooting of a movie I devised with the film-maker Marie-Helene Cousineau. With these ten weâll create a solid base, but each week weâll provide open workshops for the community and the kids will help me teach them. So weâre already giving back knowledge from local people to local people. For the Inuit people, by the Inuit people.â
It is Saladinâs unique upbringing that has led him to this point. Both his parents are anthropologists and his father spent almost 50 years working in the Arctic with the Inuit community as an expert in Inuit Shamanism. Although Saladin was born in Quebec City, he spent much of his childhood in Igloolik. He was baptised by its queen and given the Inuit name of Ittuksardjuat. That name relates him to a family with whom he stays whenever he goes back, so he feels very strongly that he is part of the community.
âI was raised in Igloolik and spent all my summers there until I was 15. Then I didnât go again until I was 24. My father continued to go there to conduct his research. I started out training to be a sociologist and I decided to finish my Sociology degree there with Isuma Productions who were shooting the film, Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner. I realised then that there was a dark side to the reality to life there that I never saw when I was a kid. Kids are lost in the generational gap. There is a loss of meaning in their lives. The elders still have the old knowledge but the kids are disconnected. There are so many images coming at them from the TV, but it has no meaning for them. There are no local role models. Thatâs why Isuma are trying to create Inuit stars with their movies. Artcirq is trying to do the same thing at ground level. Weâre not that big.â
As well as circus skills, such as juggling, acrobatics, Inuit straps, unicycling and trapeze, the kids also have a chance to learn such things as lighting, set building, costume, dance, theatre, acting, writing and video-making. It is intended to give them career opportunities and a purpose in life. Their job prospects otherwise are limited to becoming cashiers or sewage truck drivers. Saladin has a network of about 15 potential trainers and is looking forward to working with an old friend from circus school.
âJanju Bonzon will be helping me. Heâs a teeter board and BMX specialist and has been working with Circus Zip Zap in South Africa. As soon as heâs finished there heâll join me in the Arctic. Heâll be in the movie as well. Iâm also going to bring other circus people to provide speciality workshops. Iâll be there the whole time, the other artists will come to bring specific training. The end of the movie will be the beginning of the show that we want to present to other local communities. It will be a full-length movie about a year in the life of two young kids from a remote community close to Igloolik, who do stupid things, and one is caught by the police. He has to do social work at the community hall and gets in touch with the circus group.â
Early on, Saladinâs project began to address the problem of a rising number of suicides in Igloolik that local residents had debated for years. Before Artcirq there were an average of four or five suicides every year but, dramatically, 12 months after it started, they were able to celebrate a suicide-free year. But it remains a bleak place for kids. The island has only 1,200 inhabitants and is surrounded by ice for eight months of the year with temperatures falling to â60 degrees C in January, when there is no sun.
âIt can be brutal. Itâs never banal, never flat; life is either very high, beautiful, powerful, very strong, then suddenly, very dark, deep, violent, with a loss of meaning. Kids there need to find themselves as teenagers, find out who they are. Traditionally there, men were hunters, women were mothers. Thatâs still the same in Igloolik, but not many people are hunters anymore. Lots are just like teenagers anywhere. They have lots of energy, they listen to hip-hop, rap, rock ânâ roll, they always ask: âYo, whatâs up?â And the answer is always: âNot much.â And itâs that ânot muchâ that causes the problems. They are stuck on an island, stuck in a village, everywhere is a dead end, every street, and itâs flat, flat, flat. Just gravel and tundra. For eight months a year, itâs all white and for four, itâs summertime. Then there is an explosion of life. Everyone breathes again. In winter people stay inside. The kids have school until they are 16 and then are free to do whatever they want. Everyone is an artist inside and trying to express themselves, sometimes this will be by drugs, alcohol or sports. Weâre trying to bring back another way of expression. Another possibility.â
At present, Saladin explains, the young people have three ways to escape. âIgloolik has two little hills; one way is the airport, then the village and the other is the cemetery. They can look out and see two exits. One way out is when you die and another is if you leave the island and donât come back. Education is free, so itâs possible to leave the country. They go and study in the white world. Itâs not connected to them, but itâs a possibility. Another possibility is if you commit a crime and kill someone, you will go to jail down south, so itâs a way to leave. Another way to leave is if you shoot yourself. Or you stay home in your own environment and do things that make sense of your life, and try to mix where you come from with where you want to go and find a meaningful job. Weâre trying to provide meaningful expression that could be transformed into meaningful careers.â
Sadly, even though the suicide rate in Igloolik has been reduced by 80 per cent, there are still deaths among the young people. Last year the elder sister of one of Saladinâs 12-year-old students hanged herself despite being clever at school and apparently having a bright future. âShe was 14. We donât know exactly why she did it. I arrived three or four days afterwards and we worked with her sister for a month. We did a 45-minute show last summer that we presented ten times to the community. And for the last show she juggled with us. Sheâd come a long way. Inside she was always sad, but she stayed with us because it brought her joy and happiness. But at the same time she was not full of life. She had to work, work, work. It was meaningful for her to show her father how she could juggle. She did that, her family was there and they were all crying.â
Saladin first became involved in circus while he was studying for his Masters degree in sociology. A friend suggested he join her at a circus class and he loved it so much that he decided to give up his studies and enrol at Montrealâs National Circus School, where he met Karine Delzors. They became performing partners and specialised in hand-to-hand balancing. Delzors is also involved In Artcirq, as are others from the Nomade cast. Bartek SoroczyĹski, one of the clowns, is another of the artists who has visited Igloolik on several occasions to run workshops for the kids and help with the shows. Acrobatics, juggling, unicycling, hand-to-hand have all featured in the productions, which always have a local theme and feel. The shows are filmed by the students, some of the activity taking place in igloos or out on the ice pack.
He and Delzors have now been performing together for seven years. âWe were taught by Alexandre Arnoutov, who comes from a famous Russian circus family. Heâs in his sixties now and is still doing hand-to-hand with his wife. The other two men who have influenced Karine and me a lot, and therefore Artcirq as well, are Daniele Finzi Pasca, our artistic director in Nomade, and Krzysztof SoroczyĹski, Bartekâs father, our head trainer at Cirque Eloize. He has a lot of knowledge about different techniques. So, those three men have been very important to us.â
In Nomade, Saladin displays his own wide-ranging talents. Due to his stature and strength he forms the base of a four-man column, he sings, plays the trombone, juggles and performs acrobatics. But it is his stunning hand-to-hand display, performed with Delzors under a fine mist of water, that provides the showâs finale. Despite losing one of the key members of its troupe, Cirque Eloize is committed to supporting Artcirq. It has sold red clown noses at all performances of Nomade to raise funds for the project, which has always been run on a shoestring. âThey are also providing training space in Montreal, their own circus equipment that they no longer need and they are buying specific things for us, like juggling clubs. They are a great partner. They are sensitive. Krzysztof can also come to Igoolik to lead a workshop if we need him.â
Saladin has many hopes and dreams for the future of his project. âOne is working with the Inuit trying to bridge the cultures, and the other is to create a show with Cirque Eloize one day. Karine is part of Artcirq and sheâs staying with Eloize, so Iâm sure theyâll propose her for it. Daniele will also be involved. If the timing is right, everyone is in place.â
His altruism puts most people to shame but he sees Artcirq as a lifelong project and appears to carry his responsibilities lightly. âItâs a promise I made myself when I was a kid and Iâm just following that. My Inuit name means âthe little old man who will growâ. This man, Ittuksardjuat, was a powerful Inuit leader in the 1930s, a great chief. Inuits say that through the names theyâre passing the knowledge also, so the one called Ittuksardjuat will be a little like him. If my name was not Ittuksardjuat Iâm sure my life would have been different. I feel connected to him. I feel Iâm going back for me also. To save my life, to make sense of it because when I was a kid I used to live there. I was baptised with an Inuit name which joins me to their culture. I canât say Iâm not part of it. Iâm just trying to mix everything that I am inside and use it to communicate and to share. If you donât realise someday that sharing is the best way to live a happy life and that you canât just live for yourself, youâll feel sad at the end and alone. Thatâs my motivation; to be happy.â
Saladin already has an invitation from a festival in Salzburg for the Inuit troupe to perform there if they ever go to Europe. The Inuit Cultural Centre in Paris is also open to help them in any way. âThere are many places we can go. This is one dream, to set up a tour, then to perform somewhere else. My mother is also involved with aboriginals in Amazonian Peru and when I was there I was surprised to see similarities between the two cultures. That would be a nice exchange. What one has lost can be relearnt from the other. But those are my dreams and I donât want to impose them. Itâs their own destiny. Itâs for them to express and direct.â
Saladin is passionate about Artcirq and determined to preserve its heritage. He stresses: âItâs important to combine the circus skills with traditional dance and music. Last summer we recreated an old legend in a month. It made me realise how willing the kids were and how good they are. Weâre trying to find the roots of circus in Inuit culture. Through that weâre trying to bring back meaning and not lose everything from the past. If you want to run forwards you need to know where youâre coming from. Our goal is continuity. Artcirq is not a little fire that will burn for a month and then go out.â
Artcirqâs website. To make a donation to the company contact Guillaume Saladin at [email protected]
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Weâll be catching up again with Gui in the next few weeks and posting an interview to further mark Artcirqâs 20th anniversary.
This feature first appeared in Spectacle magazine. A shorter version also appeared in The Stage.