The Lesson on Performing: Nobody Can Bend Indefinitely

Late Angela Laurier, French-Canadian contortionist bending her spine in her performance "Deversoir" during the Festival Novog Cirkusa in Zagreb, Croatia; black-and-white photo by Jean Pierre Estournet.

I disappeared for three months. I just silently closed the curtains on this www stage and, instead of writing about the hospitality business, shifted my attention to the business itself – working inside a hotel.

This wasn’t my first season of waiting tables, where I swapped swimming in the sea with drowning in sweat. Trying to keep the smile on, while serving high-expectation guests during the global warming, dressed up in long sleeves and an apron on top of trousers, is not the easiest of tasks. I can imagine many better ways to spend a summer than working in a fine-dining restaurant. In double shifts. Often 10+ hours a day. With one free day per week.

We don’t have an infinite number of lives. How we spend the one we have, is what truly matters

Even when propeling a blog to the top 500k websites in the world, online businesses in the era of cheap AI and profit-hungry search engines can have quite unstable finances. To bring money to the table, one sometimes needs to resort to offline solutions.

I learned to live with deprioritizing my personal projects or needs when the situation requires it. Also, working directly with tourists does bring excitement. I never felt bored in the high-intensity job of serving food and beverages to hungry and thirsty clients. Performing this task can be eventful.

However, I also learned (not once!) that we are not cats. We don’t have an infinite number of lives. How we spend the one we have, is what truly matters.

Just before I quit updating Pipeaway’s website in May, the sad news reached me – one inspiring person decided to quit something irrevocable. Life itself.

Angela Laurier, late French-Canadian contortionist bending herself during the performance "Deversoir" at the Festival Novog Cirkusa in Zagreb, Croatia; photo by Darko Paukovic Kan.
In her “Déversoir” (Overflow), performed at Festival Novog Cirkusa in Zagreb, Croatia, Angela Laurier takes a new perspective on her family life

Angela Laurier no more

Angela Laurier was a contortionist of international fame. Indeed, she could bend like a snake, but the Quebecoise artist wasn’t serving entertainment. She chose a professional path that was stripping off layers of her not-so-simple private life, something very authentic on world stages.

If her name doesn’t ring a bell, surely you’ve heard of Cirque du Soleil. In the young days of this now-famous Canadian circus, Angela Laurier was an important performer. She starred in “Le Grand Tour”, the very first production that brought a small troupe of Montreal‘s street performers to the rest of Quebec in 1984. It would become the seed of the largest contemporary circus the world would ever see.

 

If you follow Angela Laurier’s biography, you’ll see her grow from Pop Citrouille, a TV show where her promising talent glued Canadian children and teenagers to TV screens with absurd sketches and catchy tunes. After the Cirque, she appeared in everything from German variétés to Robert Lepage‘s theater productions, starring as Puck, the jester, in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

The talented artist’s true influence, however, reached its zenith when she decided to follow her own path. She formed Compagnie Angela Laurier and started depicting topics of mental illness nibbling on her family.

Angela’s and my professional timelines intertwined for a brief moment. In 2009, I invited her to play the show called “Déversoir” in Zagreb, at Festival Novog Cirkusa, an event I was directing in Croatia for 12 years.

The final bow of the artistic team of the contemporary circus performance "Déversoir" at Festival Novog Cirkusa in Zagreb, Croatia; contortionist Angela Laurier standing next to her schizophrenic brother Dominique; photo by Darko Paukovic Kan.
The final bow at Zagreb’s Festival Novog Cirkusa – Angela Laurier performed and stood shoulder to shoulder by her brother Dominique, suffering from schizophrenia

With this touching performance, the contortionist tried to demystify madness by reconnecting with her alienated family members, a depressive father and a schizophrenic brother. Her stage work was a personal and public healing therapy.

Still, 15 years later, on May 19th, 2024, Angela Laurier decided to take her life, at the age of 62.

On edge

Paying homage to someone three months after their passing might seem strange. But this is not Angela Laurier’s necrology.

I haven’t known her that deeply, and I don’t know what preceded her decision to quit living. But she was a thought-provoking artist. Even her self-controlled departure made me reflect on the ways we approach our mental health. Are we neglecting it when prioritizing outer expectations, while in pursuit of personal happiness, we feel disabled?

Last year brought me a couple of reminders of the fragility of our existence. The heart betrayed my Indonesian friend Fathin Naufal. A lack of social support left my Croatian school friend Lidija Džidara stranded. And even if I already knew that taking care of oneself should always be a priority, choosing a sometimes mindless routine can feel easier.

Angela Laurier’s departure made me revisit her performance showcasing her physical and mental flexibility. But I also discovered some of her interviews which showed she was keen on doing things her way.

Triptych of images from the show "Deversoir"; artist Angela Laurier breaking out of her high-fashion straitjacket; photo by Darko Paukovic Kan.
Haute torture: Angela Laurier breaking out of her stylized straitjacket outfit in “Déversoir”

After three European tours with Cirque du Trottoir, Angela returned to Cirque du Soleil in 1988, for the last time. The project was bigger than before. It was bringing much more money in, but the “big dream” was also far away from where she saw it starting.

“It’s really a business now. Business is rolling and we perform”, Angela said. She spoke about losing track of who we were, about a feeling that we’re becoming someone else. “No one is truly themselves, they don’t feel good inside. We can’t get to know who people really are. They’re always stressed. They’re very emotional. We’re all very emotional, on edge, always pumped up and tense. We try to be positive all the time because you’ve got to be positive when performing. This creates a lot of conflict.”

 

Tourism du Soleil

Tourism is a smiling business too. While it naturally employs friendly people, it is still a sort of a performance. You leave your personal worries at home, put a cheerful face on, and act happiness no matter what, so that others can feel as if being somewhere truly special.

For the sake of the success of the business, workers pay the price in tension and stress. That’s Tourism du Soleil, ladies and gentlemen, “the greatest show on Earth”!

But tourist seasons are often managed in a way that they necessarily take a toll, not just a physical one. After your exhausting juggling shift in the restaurant, you come home for a few hours of recharging before, all groggy, you need to rush back again, to do your best hospitality somersaults again.

The working conditions can sometimes bend and contort around the laws that prevent the exploitation of workers, with the best monetary performance in mind. Stretching to their limits, employees can feel like expendables.

When you see all those smiling faces while enjoying your well-deserved holidays, remember there could be a dark side to that performed happiness. It could be comparable to the try-to-be-positive-all-the-time “edge” Angela Laurier detected in the 1980s, the situation where, for the sake of the success of the business, workers pay the price in tension and stress. That’s Tourism du Soleil, ladies and gentlemen, “the greatest show on Earth”!

Now matters more than tomorrow

After months of balancing poached eggs, strawberry gazpachos and beef tartars while running up and down restaurant terraces, performing my positive best despite the lack of sleep and time for anything else but work, I decided to leave the arena, earlier than the official end of the season.

It would be easy to call me a quitter, but my employers and I separated ways in mutual understanding. Tourism is a performance, and we performed it well.

I can’t say there were many surprises. When I signed up for it, I understood the nature of the job. I’m just saying that life should be more. Life is more.

Recent years provided sad but valuable reminders that we all have expiry dates. So by the end of August, weighing my work situation and certain personal connections elsewhere, I decided I wanted to control more than just the thickness of my wallet. I wanted to spare myself regrets, to see people I care about, to share time where it matters. Now, not tomorrow.

During the performance of "Déversoir", the shadow of the artist Angela Laurier tries to shut the mouth of her father projected on the screen; photo by Darko Paukovic Kan.
Angela Laurier trying to stop the words flowing from her father’s mouth

In a recorded interview, Angela’s father, who authorized electroshocks for his schizophrenic son, said: “Luckily, life is not eternal.”

While I could agree we cannot choose the sufferings life throws at us, I would still rather grieve the shortness of happy moments than find solace in an eventual natural end to the agony. Some things we, luckily, do get to control.

So here I am, at the start of a new global wandering adventure, chasing moments much more precious than a steady income. I’ll be revisiting old friends but certainly also discovering many new insights on this trip that starts with one-way tickets.

Now, all the world’s a stage. While the fatalistic school of thought could say that actors aren’t here to direct, we can still choose our roles and go off-script.

September 10th is observed as World Suicide Prevention Day (a part of the Suicide Prevention Week, in the USA). The current theme is "Changing the Narrative on Suicide", with the call to action to "Start the Conversation", as that can save lives. If you are struggling, reach out to a mental health professional or a person of trust.

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Angela Laurier, French-Canadian contortionist produced a number of thought-provoking performances on mental health. On May 19th, 2024, she still committed a suicide, at the age of 62. She left a lecture on performance as such - nobody can bend indefinitely.

Ivan Kralj

Editor

Award-winning journalist and editor from Croatia

8 Comments
  1. Nice reflective post. I hate she took her life, it’s so sad but I know they are wrestling with demons. It’s a big struggle in the world of performing. I worked in TV/film for a while so I do know there are dark sides for so many. On a happier note, contortionists are super talented and Cirque du Soleil is one of my favorite companies!

    1. Thank you, Heather.

      It truly is heartbreaking when we lose so thought-provoking artists. Despite the pressures in the performing world, I think that here it were other, off-stage inner battles that made this exit feel like the only option.

      And yes, despite the heavy topic, the sheer talent of performers like Angela is awe-inspiring.

      Thank you for sharing your thoughts and connecting on both sides of this conversation.

    1. Thank you so much, Kelly.

      It’s definitely a sad story, and I appreciate your kind words about how I shared it.

      Restaurant work has its own unique set of challenges and, in current circumstances, it felt like the right time to step away.
      I really wanted to be around important people who were going through difficult periods (more difficult than my, for sure), and I haven’t seen them for some time.
      So walking away felt better. Which doesn’t mean I won’t come back when the time comes 😉

      Thanks again for your comment!

  2. A sad story indeed! My only stint working in a restaurant was in Honolulu when I was 19. I was attending the University of Hawaii, and got a job at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, working “back of house” in the kitchen. We set up banquets and washed dishes when they were over. Actually, it was quite fun! Met so many interesting people! But those eight hours shifts – and living in Hawaii – took their toll on my studies. I got one D and one F and ended up back in California after only one semester.

    1. Thanks for sharing your story, Michael!

      Restaurant work can definitely be fun! There are entertaining moments that lift up the spirit, and also many to learn from.

      But I almost envy those 8-hour shifts you had. Waiter’s standard overhere during the season is more like 50-60 hours a week, or even more, if one has to work every day. So tourist season practically forces you to have a vacation afterwards (if not a sick leave!).

      But yeah, in your case, working any number of shifts while juggling studies could not have been a recipe for a great success. It’s understandable you couldn’t give the best of your game. But you survived to tell it all!

      Thanks again for sharing your experience!

  3. Wow. I am sincerely moved by this article. Always saddened, shocked and confused by the thought of someone feeling the need to end their life. Thought-provoking reminder for all of us. Thank you for the perspective and good luck with your new adventure.

    1. Thank you so much, Alan.
      I’m truly grateful that the article resonated with you.
      It’s always difficult to grasp the pain someone must feel to make such a decision, and it leaves us with so many emotions — sadness, confusion, and a strong reminder of how important mental health is. I’m glad if this piece could spark some reflection.
      Your kind words mean a lot, and I really appreciate the well wishes. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts!

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