We cannot comprehend the St. Lawrence River. It is impossible to understand the entire river because of its size. It would be impossible for us to grasp the dynamics of the river as a whole, even if we gathered all our scientific, economic, and historical knowledge.
Can the performing arts help us see the bigger picture if science cannot? This article recounts my journey with the EcH2osysteme Project, where I tried to express through circus arts the complexity of what links us to the St. Lawrence ecosystem through the people who work on its water.
ecH₂osystème is a documentary-type maritime research-creation project. The approach is the source of my doctorate in art studies and practices at UQAM and various scientific and artistic projects that combined 20 years in the performing arts with my long-standing fascination for the maritime world.
The research-creation process has two objectives: the creation of a piece of work and the knowledge that is gathered during its design. ecH2osysteme mobilizes knowledge and facilitates interdisciplinarity. It also meshes arts and sciences and questions art as a form of knowledge, starting with the ecosystem in which we live. In 2020, I proposed to carry out nautical research-creation, where the waters would be the driving force, as opposed to a project which starts with a concept or text, aesthetics, a performance, or a staging.
Change of direction
In 2017, I turned my attention toward the St. Lawrence after a career that was punctuated with different creative projects and travels around the globe.
Two factors influenced my decision. After the Cirque du Sol created Luzia in 2016, I took a break from my work as a theatre actor to travel to Ecuador on a ship. One day, during a layover, the scientific team at Gorgon invited me to the field. Two jets of water shot at me as I was swimming toward the island. Two whales took me by surprise, and I almost drowned because I wasn’t wearing a life jacket. This is a lesson I will never forget.
The second element is related to the first stage of the maritime project that I worked on. Avudo is a large-scale event by the Compagnia Finzi Pasca, which was part of Montreal’s 375th Anniversary. As the director of artistic and historical content for the show, I spent three years researching to match my synopsis with the colors of the river.
Through this process, I became absorbed in a historical perspective on the river. What about the St. Lawrence River today?
Many memories
In the period between 2017 and 2022, I explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence River aboard a number of vessels, including fishing vessels, research ships, bulk carriers, and ferries. Also, I used a tractor to operate on the part of the coast that lies between the extremes of high and low water levels, known as the intertidal zones.
Over 300 collaborators from the marine and freshwater science, fishing, maritime, and port industries joined me in my five-year research project. The participants included researchers from different research groups as well as representatives from government departments, corporations, and First Nations. They also represented harbor authorities, institutions, networks, municipalities, and family traditions. The participants were from all generations – professors, students, and even those who are trained in the newest technology. The story was enriched by their experience and knowledge, as well as through links formed throughout the project. I collected literally thousands of memories from my interactions with these people.
In real-time, I recorded these pieces of knowledge that combined maritime, scientific, and fishing expertise. Acrobatic maneuvers are performed to a soundtrack of voices recorded on-site by my collaborators. They transport the audience to a port or laboratory, a ship’s deck, or a winter mission of the Quebec Maritime Network aboard the icebreaker CCGS Amundsen at the moment that oceanographers found a rare halibut in their sampling net.
The ecH2osysteme is a unique device.
As a researcher at the, I designed it in 2018. In 2018, as a researcher with the Center for Research, Innovation, and Transfer in Circus Arts, I created the O d’ ecH2osysteme. The O wheel is four meters in diameter and can be installed using a crane on the deck of ships, piers, or banks of small and large municipalities along the St. Lawrence shores. The real-time story is centered around the water that’s in the background.
The summer of 2022 saw the start of a new phase in the project, with the being tested by the CALQ, the CCA, and others. The O tests in the summer of 2020 marked the beginning of a new project phase, which the CCA and the NSERC Innovation Program supported.
This new phase enabled a series of collaborative work residencies in which scientists became co-choreographers. Fishermen also became co-directors. Sailors were co-playwrights.
The river and the spectator
EcH2osysteme cannot explain the disproportional scale of the St. Lawrence ecosystem. It aims to stage the ecosystem, transferring knowledge to many actors. The acrobat shrinks when the or is hoisted on top of a crane. The water column is vertiginous at 20 meters. We instinctively hold our breath. The sensation is increased if there’s a wind gust, even though the acrobat has a harness on and the crew of O is taking all necessary safety measures.
The performing arts can go beyond data, words, or representation. They are based on contemporary documentaries. In 1989, filmmaker Pierre Perrault asked, “Does this even exist?” Arts become a lens that allows us to shrink life by transposing the scale.
The preliminary results of my first weeks of explorations in Rimouski, Pointe-aux-Trembles, and Riviere-au-Renard were promising. The investigation will continue in various riverside municipalities during the summer of 2023. This will allow me to combine the scenes I have created with collaborators the following year. This first show is aimed at the general public and will reflect the St. Lawrence in a larger context.
ecH2osysteme seeks to show the relationship between river and spectator, and spectator and river. “in an ecosystem in which we do not live aecosystemors but as participants.”
The St. Lawrence is home to tiny shrimp, which the biggest giants of the world eat. The melting glaciers carry these shrimp to the taps that millions of people use each day. This knowledge will be passed on to future generations to help them understand the ecH2osysteme that flows from the Great Lakes and the Arctic to the stage.