Not many people can say they are living the life of their dreams, but for Sarah Tessier, life at 22 couldn’t be much sweeter – swinging her way from city to city as part of a duo fixed-trapeze act of Cirque Du Soleil’s ‘Totem’.
At just 15 years of age, Sarah Tessier’s life catapulted from obscurity to dizzying heights when accepted into Montreal’s exclusive Ecole Nationale De Cirque (National Circus School) before going on to make it into the world famous circus company, Cirque Du Soleil.
Sarah admits being a trapeze artist wasn’t what she always wanted to do, but after some encouragement from a friend, she was swept up in the circus world and hasn’t looked back since. “When I auditioned for Ecole Nationale De Cirque, I hadn’t done any formal training so I wasn’t sure I was going to get in... I had done different sports before, as well as gymnastics, but it wasn’t until a friend from high school who was already at the college told me to audition that I fell in love with the circus art.”It was also during that time Sarah found her love for the trapeze and met her trapeze partner, Frenchman, Guilhem Cauchois, with whom she has worked with as a duo fixed-trapeze artist for the past two years.
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Guilhem and Sarah perform the incredibly breathtaking performance, 'Lovebirds', an act they themselves have especially choreographed for 'Totem' which represents the concept of young lovers and the trials and tribulations of romantic love.
“Meeting Guilhem totally changed everything for me because I wanted to follow my love for trapeze, but of course you have to have a partner, which I didn’t have... I was really lucky that I met Guilhem because you obviously need a partner to be able to achieve your goals and you also have to be able to work well together because you have to spend a lot of time together, so there has to be a chemistry there or it won’t work.
“It’s not always that easy to find someone that you work well with and sometimes people will change partners as you need to be able to share the same artistic vision and there’s a lot of the trust aspect that goes into the act.”
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Having a good partner is not the only challenge when working as a professional trapeze artist, there’s developing the actual performance and fine-tuning the act, with falling and injuries all part of the territory. “It takes quite a while because there aren’t any formal movements in trapeze, so you have to make everything up and the choreography takes a long time too because you have to do a lot of research and find moves and think about how to go in and out of them again,” explains Sarah.
“While at school you learn how to fall because it happens all the time, although since being in the show we only do things that are safe and things we know we can control... Learning how to fall is a big part of the job though and it’s actually not the scariest thing anymore because I know what it is and actually doing the act with fear is so much worse than if you are confident.”Fear of heights or performing in front of thousands of people are obviously no big feats for the 22-year-old Canadian who says she doesn’t have any plans on slowing down anytime soon, with her sights set on continuing her craft long into the future. “I’m from Montreal and have seen Cirque Du Soleil since I was five years old, so getting the chance to perform for them is a dream come true.
“It varies how long you can perform as a trapeze artist because it depends on how healthy you are and injuries can happen, although there are some performers still performing at 37 or 38, so that’s encouraging to see.“It’s hard to plan what I want to do, but for the moment Guilhem and I want to stay with Cirque as we enjoy working with them and will eventually try working with other companies... Guilhem and I are a package and plan to stick together, so we’ll just go with whatever life brings us.”
Cirque Du Soleil 'Totem' Tour Dates
Until 29 March – Flemington Racecourse (Melbourne)10 April - 17 May – Big Top, Northshore Hamilton (Brisbane)
11 June - 5 July – The Plateau in Tampawardli (Adelaide)
31 July - 16 Aug – Belmount Racecourse (Perth)
