New Beginnings - Entertainment

By Greg Burliuk, The Whig Standard

The circus has traditionally been a place where audiences saw fantasies come true with exotic animals and death-defying acts. Cirque du Soleil has taken that concept and updated it. But fantasies coming true don't just apply to audiences. The performers also venture to a fantastic place they'd never thought they'd be.

Take Ella Bangs for instance. When Cirque's show, Quidam, comes to the K-Rock Centre from Dec. 11-14, the 13-year-old Ottawa native will be centre stage as one of the lead characters. She's been with the show for nearly four years and has spent most of the last two years in Quidam, putting on big tent shows in South America.

Actually, Bangs' role is the central one in the story. She plays Zoe, a bored child who feels like she has seen and done everything there is to see. Her anger one day catapults her into a mysterious fantasy world, with characters like The Target, her companion, whom the Cirque press kit describes as someone who "chooses to live in empty space, present and absent at the same time."

Along the way Zoe sees amazing contortionists, acrobats, hand balancers and gymnasts.

For Bangs, her journey started in her hometown of Ottawa, where she and her older sister Tessa had a fiddling and step-dancing act, along with guitar-playing father Robert. Ella was spotted by a talent scout who recommended her when the scout began working for Cirque.

However, in Quidam, Ella neither plays the fiddle nor dances. Instead she sings some 10 songs. "I'd never taken singing lessons before but they showed me what to do," she says. "I didn't really know what the Cirque was. But then I realized it was huge."

One of the hardest parts about learning the songs was the lyrics, since they weren't in English but rather a nonsense language. "The words don't mean anything," says Bangs. "But you can sort of tell what they mean when it's a sad part or during a happy part.

"The show is not really the same from night to night. They rotate the acts and the audience reacts differently with each show."

When the Cirque puts on big tent shows, they stay in large cities for six weeks at a time, and on this day Bangs is speaking from Bogota, Colombia. When that stint is through, she will come to Kingston. Her family is travelling with her, and she has been attending a school provided by the company.

"We have two teachers and five students but most of the students have gone now," she says.

Bangs performs five shows a week but her time with the company is coming to an end, as Quidam is being transformed into an arena show, which only stays in a town for six days rather than six weeks, and its more nomadic existence isn't deemed as child-friendly as the big tent shows. After Kingston, Bangs will perform in a few arena shows in Quebec and then be done.

"I'd have liked to keep going but it would have been too complicated to go to school and do arena shows," she says.

Performing in Kingston will almost seem like a home performance for Bangs, as lots of her friends and relatives will be coming here to see her perform.

"Most of my family is coming to Kingston," she says. "I'm really excited."

Quidam's arena world premiere will be in Kingston, says show publicist Jessica Leboeuf, who has been with the company for 10 years now.

"The tent shows are for the larger cities, and by doing them in arenas, we're giving them a second life. It's the same show but we build a new set. The arena shows are closer to people's homes so they don't have to go only to the larger cities to see the Cirque."

Kingston is an ideal spot for the company, since it's near company headquarters in Montreal.

"I can see us coming back here quite often," says Leboeuf, who notes that the Cirque currently has 20 different shows on the road.

Essentials

What: Cirque du Soleil stops at the K-Rock Centre from December 11- 14 for six shows.

Tickets: Range from $24 to $99.

More: The show is named Quidam and one of its stars is 13-year-old Ella Bangs.