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No Clowning Around
Trapezes, tight wires, and trampolines - The National Circus School is establishing Montreal as a leader in the circus world
Like most college students, Mason Ames is tired. For five days a week, the 21-year-old New Hampshire native wakes up at 6:30 a.m. By roughly 8:00 a.m., he is closing the door of his Montreal apartment, bound for his first class. Practices last six to seven hours a day “at least,” and he then cracks open the books for his two to three-hour long night classes. Exhausted, he is typically out of class at around 8:30 p.m. and in bed by midnight, only to begin the process all over again the next day. However, Ames differs from the majority of college students in one key way: he is an aspiring circus performer.
"For my major, I’m a porter for hand-to-hand," Ames says. "I’ll be on the ground, and my partner, who’s a flyer, does a handstand on my hands. She flips, and I catch her again – sometimes by the hands, sometimes by the feet."
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“Our goal is to promote Montreal as one of the premier circus arts capitals in the world.”
College then awaits: approximately 75 to 80 students are currently enrolled in the three-year program, one that combines both circus and academic studies. The result? A Diploma of Collegial Studies in Circus Arts. (Another three year program, aimed at foreign students, offers a Diploma of National Circus School Studies.) And the mission of the National Circus School, as Marie-Pier Turgeon explains, is clear.
"Our goal is to promote Montreal as one of the premier circus arts capitals in the world,” says Turgeon, assistant director of communications. “There are three major circus schools in the world, and ours is one of them. And our first mission – our primary mission – is to train circus artists."
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And although Turgeon maintains that little promotion for the school has a global scope, the school’s reputation is, she says, "quite good," and acts as a virtual magnet to aspiring circus performers. The student body of the National Circus School resembles a micro-sized U.N., with the students hailing from such countries as France, Sweden, Canada, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Peru and the United States. Yet all, according to Turgeon, share one goal in mind.
"They have to be so convinced that this is what they want, because they are pushed to their artistic limit.”
"The students’ only goal is to become a circus performer – that’s really what they want to do," says Turgeon. "They have to be so convinced that that is what they want, because they are pushed to their artistic limit."
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“Being a circus performer is my dream job.”
Academics, however, do not go ignored: each college student takes classes for two to three hours a night in such disciplines as French, philosophy, anatomy, social science, math and, of course, circus history.
"Being a circus performer is my dream job," Ames says. "The program is pretty darn fantastic. It definitely pushes you - you don’t feel awesome every day. It’s nice to open up, to be pushed in ways you hadn’t been pushed in life before."
The opportunity to receive this push is open to a select few: According to Turgeon, roughly 25 students out of approximately 200 are admitted to the college program per year. And the admissions process, which commences in February, lasts for a grueling four days.
"We’re looking for performers, and the artistic technique is very important to becoming a good circus artist.”
"There are auditions in three cities: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver," says Ames. "There was stiff competition in Montreal. There were auditions for four days – whole days of auditions – and they post the results at night. There are cuts every day. It’s stressed out, nerve-wracking – and exciting."
"In order to be a circus artist, students need to have good training in gymnastics and ballet," explains Turgeon. "We’re looking for performers, and the artistic technique is very important to becoming a good circus artist."
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"I had been working with a flyer [female partner] for a year and a half or so before the audition," Ames says. "I had a few numbers, which I shortened down, stylized. She [his partner] wasn’t auditioning – she was just helping me out. You hope to find another partner in crime at auditions."
"This school makes circus artists."
On the fourth – and last – day of auditions, the remaining students then take classes in their chosen concentrations to determine if the potential pupil is a "good match" for the school, and further tests are administered. "We want to be sure of our choices," Turgeon says. In Ames’s case, it was at this final round of auditions that he and his would-be circus partner, whom he had met on the second day of auditions, requested to be paired together, forming a two-person team that would work together for three years and, hopefully, beyond.
"I wanted to enter as a porter, so I took a class in hand-to-hand to know if my personality was right for the school," explains Ames, who found out a month after auditions that he had been accepted. "I met my partner, Valerie Benoit, at auditions. It happens that people change partners at some schools, but (this) school makes circus artists, and you have the same partner for three years - the whole point is to work with them afterward."
"Twenty to 30 percent of our graduates go to Cirque de Soleil at one point in their careers."
And for a school whose main mission is to produce professional circus performers, their job placement rate after graduation is, according to Turgeon, excellent: Of last year’s graduating class, 98 percent of the graduating seniors had a contract in hand by the end of the program. Yet receiving a diploma in Circus Arts does not signal that the work is over.
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A lack of wanderlust is not a problem for Ames. The second year college student, who says that one of the things he is homesick for most is a starlit view, aspires to, upon graduation, "see the world a little bit." Indeed, Ames hopes to perhaps join a cabaret in Germany or one of the "bunches" of circuses in Europe where, no doubt, he will be able to see the stars.
"I’m open to see what opportunities appear in the next few years," Ames says. "It would definitely be nice to be working with people I really like. As long as I do that, I’ll be happy. I’ll hopefully be making other people happy, and inspiring people."
Have you visited The National Circus School?
Circus…Smirkus?
Mason Ames is no stranger to the circus world: the aspiring circus artist was a former participant of Circus Smirkus, a non-profit organization based in Greensboro, Vermont that acts as a circus training camp for aspiring clowns between the ages of 10 to 18. Established in 1987, Circus Smirkus is touted as the “first Vermont-based traveling circus in over 100 years.” One year after its founding, the circus summer camp and touring show expanded beyond Greensboro’s borders, launching a statewide tour in 11 towns over the course of three weeks, performing a total of 28 shows.
Their reputation has since grown: Circus Smirkus attracts performers from around the nation and the globe, with the young clowns hailing from such countries as Canada, England, Thailand, Israel, Indonesia, and Mongolia. To be a part of Circus Smirkus’s summer camp, which has the aspiring circus artists master, for up to two weeks, such clown staples as juggling, unicycling, tight wire, and trapeze, potential members must first audition. Aspiring clowns can also audition to be eligible to go on the two month long, 70-plus show tour, called the Big Top Tour Troupe. During the summers of Ames’s junior and senior years of high school, he went on two tours throughout New England, performing 80 shows over the course of 8 weeks each summer.
“It’s an awesome place to be,” says Ames, who first participated in Circus Smirkus at 14. “We put a show together in three weeks. You’re in the ring a lot, under a tent. It’s one of the best places to be if you have a passion for circus.”