Guillaume
Saladin left his career as a professional acrobat to help young
Inuits in northern Canada form Artcirq, their own performing troupe.
Igloolik,
Nunavut, Canada - Four years ago, acrobat Guillaume Saladin had
an enviable job as a circus performer. He was a member of the acclaimed
Cirque Éloize, an innovative Montreal-based troupe combining
circus arts with music, dance, and theater. Specializing in gravity-defying
hand-to-hand routines a cross between handstands and dance
Mr. Saladin toured the world, visiting Europe, China, and
the Middle East.
But
when it was time to renew his circus contract, Saladin found himself
wavering. The one place he couldnt get out of his mind was
a remote Inuit community called Igloolik, 200 miles above the Arctic
Circle in Canada.
The
son of two anthropologists, Saladin spent his summers there as a
child, accompanying his father, who did fieldwork on shamanism.
He had made friends, learned the Inuktitut language, and come to
love the tundra landscape he traversed as they visited traditional
hunting camps. He was even honored with an Inuit name Ittukssarjuat
bestowed on him by a matriarch after her father, a respected
leader.
But
now he was at a crossroads. Do I tour the world with the same
show, he thought, or [go] to Igloolik?
He
chose Igloolik, arriving on Halloween 2005 with his suitcases and
juggling pins. He knew immediately hed made the right choice.
Everyone was costumed and masked and playing around ... craziness
everywhere around town, says Saladin, whose accented English
reveals his French Canadian heritage. Very similar to circus.
Then
he turned his attention to Artcirq, the Arctic circus hed
helped launch seven years earlier. Artcirq is a unique artistic
hybrid, a collective of young performers who blend techniques of
modern circus with elements of Inuit culture, such as throat singing,
music, drum dancing, and juggling. In a short time its gone
from amateurs balancing shakily on homemade teeterboards to proficient
jugglers and acrobats who balance atop each others shoulders,
perform aggressive back flips, and somersault while leaping through
hoops.
An
Olympic appearance
In
February, six members of Artcirq will represent Nunavut at the 2010
Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, part of a 14-member
ensemble of Canadian Arctic performers.
The
circus is credited with bringing hope and pride to many dispirited
young people.
My
life got brighter when I joined the circus because I had stuff to
do, says Reena Qulittalik, an Igloolik high school student.
Before that, I didnt know what to do.
Its
an odd juxtaposition the circus and the Arctic. But Saladin
recognized the potential to change young lives in this 2,000-person
hamlet, which he describes as very poor, and at the same time
very rich for the culture, for the land, for the 24-hour
sun, and for the energy coming from out of the houses.
Igloolik is one of the most traditional of the 26 communities in
Nunavut, Canadas largest federal territory. Men hunt seal
and caribou much as their ancestors did. Women hand-stitch clothing
from the skins.
Igloolik
has an abundance of social problems poverty, drug abuse,
alcoholism, a housing shortage, few jobs, and a high dropout rate
from schools. Nunavuts suicide rate is 10 to 12 times higher
than that of the rest of Canada.
Much
of this stems from the trauma caused by the federal governments
resettlement policies, acknowledged two years ago in
a major class action settlement. Canadian authorities coerced the
Inuit off the land and into communities in the 1950s and 60s
and sent their children away to boarding schools, forbidding them
to speak their native language, Inuktitut. Many were physically
and sexually abused.
Listlessness
and despair are common: In 1998, the first time Saladin came to
Igloolik as an adult, two of his friends committed suicide.
That
was a big blast of pain for each of us and for the whole community,
says Saladin, a lanky man with a sculpted physique, shaved head,
and an affinity for muscle shirts. I started to believe that
getting together and doing something positive was the best thing
to do. If its just go and bury the person and then heal your
pain alone, like nothing happened, it is very sad because [it is]
just like a ... bomb that will reexplode again with more power.
Igloolik
had no youth center or community hall offering activities. So Saladin
began working with a group of young people to develop a video and
drama group with the support of Igloolik Isuma Productions,
a film production company. The next summer he returned with some
circus friends. He continued to bring performers with him after
he joined Cirque Éloize, which helped out with money and
equipment.
It
was an unusual cultural exchange, sharing through our universal
language, that is, circus arts, he says. The young Inuit took
the acrobats on hunting trips. The performers taught the Inuit acrobatics.
Together they presented shows in Igloolik.
To
France, Mexico, and Mali
Artcirq
was born. Igloolik kids went south to take circus courses. Back
in Igloolik, they choreographed their own shows, worked with schoolchildren,
and created videos. Artcirq has even released its own music CD.
In
2005 Saladin moved full time to Igloolik, thinking hed try
it for six months or a year. Four years later, hes still ensconced
in his tiny house, which finally got indoor plumbing just last year.
The
circus, he says proudly, has been rising very fast.
Theyve taken the show to France, Mexico, and Mali, and on
a week-long snowmobile expedition through mountains and glaciers
that brought the show to two other Inuit communities.
Yet
keeping Artcirq going is a challenge. Finding funds is always a
struggle. Members rehearse in a small room next to the hockey rink
thats so cold they can see their breath. There is only one
costume a real polar bear skin, the product of a near-death
encounter with a bear on one of Saladins hunting trips with
the Inuit.
But
there are the rewards, too, like this note hes tacked to a
wall of his house.
My
role model is Guillaume, a child in Igloolik wrote. He
is nice, and he gets so many people to make [circus]. When I grow
up, I want to be like Guillaume.
Freelance
reporter Linda Matchan visited Nunavut in November on a grant from
the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
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