From La Sarre, Québec
The man who founded Cirque du Soleil once walked ninety kilometres on stilts.
in 1950. He grew up on the Abitibi frontier — a landscape of lakes, boreal forest, and mining roads. He left as a young man for the arts.
Le Balcon Vert
By the late 1970s, Ste-Croix was running an inn at the edge of Baie-Saint-Paul, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. It was called Le Balcon Vert. Every summer, it filled with young street performers passing through Charlevoix — stilt-walkers, jugglers, fire-breathers.
Two of them stayed on. Guy Laliberté, a fire-breather who had been busking in Europe. Daniel Gauthier, who took charge of the business side.
The three of them decided to make a troupe.
The stilt walk (1980)
In the spring of 1980, Ste-Croix decided the troupe needed money. So he walked.
He walked from Baie-Saint-Paul to Quebec City. On stilts. It is ninety kilometres along the Côte-de-Beaupré. He was walking for the province’s attention. Some of his friends thought he was crazy. Some of them walked beside him for stretches.
The province took notice. It funded them.
That summer, they took their first show on the road as Les Échassiers de Baie-Saint-Paul — the Stiltwalkers of the Bay. They toured small Quebec towns.
They came back broke.
The hockey rinks (winter 1981–82)
That winter they needed money again. So they attached their stilts to hockey skates and performed during intermissions at small-town rinks across Quebec. The fans did not know what to make of them.
They got paid.
La Fête Foraine (1982)
In 1982, Ste-Croix’s troupe held a festival in Baie-Saint-Paul. La Fête Foraine — modelled on the medieval European street fairs of the saltimbanques. Stilt-walking lessons in the morning, juggling at noon, fire-breathing at dusk. The festival ran every summer after.
The Cirque du Soleil (1984)
By 1983, the troupe had a new idea: a circus, with a big top. The following summer would mark the 450th anniversary of Jacques Cartier’s arrival at Gaspé — and the Quebec government agreed to fund the project with one and a half million dollars, looking for a flagship act to mark the occasion.
They called it the Cirque du Soleil. The first show premiered in Gaspé on June 16, 1984, and closed in Montreal on August 23.
Ste-Croix was one of three co-founders — with Guy Laliberté and Daniel Gauthier.
Guy Laliberte about Cirque du Soleil foundation and Gilles Ste-Croix
Artistic Director (from 1988)
In 1988, Ste-Croix became Cirque du Soleil’s Artistic Director. He also led the company’s international talent search. Over the following decades, he created and co-created some of the shows that became the company’s most globally recognized:
- Saltimbanco (1992)
- Alegría (1994)
- Mystère (1993, Las Vegas)
- Quidam (1996)
- O (1998, Las Vegas)
- LOVE (2006, in partnership with the Beatles, Las Vegas)
Gilles Ste-Croix speaks about Saltimbanco
He published his memoir Ma place au soleil — My Place in the Sun — which tells the full story.
Retired to the sun
Now retired from the Cirque du Soleil, Ste-Croix has set up a circus school for children in a Mexican beachfront village.
The walk that started it
More than forty years on, Cirque du Soleil is one of the largest entertainment brands on earth. It performs in Las Vegas and Tokyo and Macau. It has put on thirty-two productions worldwide.
But its first act of self-promotion was one man walking ninety kilometres beside the St. Lawrence, on stilts, to ask the Quebec government for money.
The province said yes.
About his town
La Sarre is a town in northwestern Quebec. It is located on the La Sarre River, a tributary of Lake Abitibi.
In 1917, the Township Municipality of La Sarre was established. The Hudson’s Bay Company opened a post in 1932. It gained town (Ville) status in 1949.
Parade Rotary, La Sarre 1982
Baie-Saint-Paul is a town in Quebec, on the northern shore of the Saint Lawrence River. It is known for its art galleries, shops and restaurants.
The place gained some prominence in the 1770s when Doctor Philippe-Louis-François Badelard named a disease he was researching the “Baie-Saint-Paul maladie”. This illness was the subject of one of the first medical publications done in Lower Canada.
It is also where Cirque du Soleil originated back in the early 1980s and the location of the first show using the name Cirque du Soleil during “La Fete Foraine de Baie-Saint-Paul” in 1984.
A visitor in the early 1800s noticed mineral springs and mineral resources in the area.
