Trio Vertigo [France] : Hand to Hand, Duo Trapeze, Aerial Straps
Trio Vertigo is made up of Cirque de Demain medalists, Duo eMotion (Morgane and Pierre - duo trapeze) and Jerome (aerial straps)
"I achieved 3 main goals/dreams in only 3 years and a half of my career. I am so thankful to all the people that has crossed my path, they helped me to make it all possible."
Awards
- SILVER medal at 14th International Circus Nikulin Festival in Moscow, Russia, 2015 [Duo eMotion]
- SILVER medal at 35th Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in Paris, France, 2014 [Duo eMotion]
- BRONZE medal at 35th Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in Paris, France, 2014 [Jérome Sordillon]
Shows
- 41h Festival international de cirque de Monte Carlo [Duo eMotion]
- Cirque du Soleil “The Beatles LOVE” [Duo eMotion]
- Cirque du Soleil “CRYSTAL” [Jérome Sordillon]
- Cirque Éloize "ID" [Jérome Sordillon]
- Cirque Éloize "Cirkopolis" [Jérome Sordillon]
- GOP Varieté-Theater Bremen, Munich, Bad, Essen and Munster [Jérome Sordillon]
- Festival Européen des artistes de cirque de Saint paul les dax [Duo eMotion]
Here is interview with Morgane.
Q1. You went to many circus festivals and competitions. Could you talk about your experiences? What did you learn from them? What is difference between each festivals?
A1. Yes, we did 4, ( 2 in france, 1 in russia and 1 in Monaco ). Festivals are really stressful!! But it is always amazing experience, it is usually really short ( from 4 days to 2 weeks depending on the festival ). Artists come from all over the world with amazing acts and every discipline, so every discipline compete against each other. There is no category, we compete against juggler, acrobat, and sometimes even the animals act!
I love festival because it is the best place to understand the culture and how circus works in every countries.
People are all doing the best they can because everybody wants a medal but between artists the atmosphere is super nice, you don’t really feel in a competition like in gymnastics.
It always amazes me because people who organize the festivals put a show together in only a few days ( it is usually never more then 3 days), and there is about 24 acts that need to do staging, lights, training and rigging the props on stage .
For us, in 2 of festivals we won a silver medal and the audience prize, it was a big recognition of all the works we put in our act.
Cirque de demain is really different from the others we did, because it is really modern ( no animals, no sparkle on costumes!!) , it is more like a new kind of circus festival!
The 3 others were pretty much the same, even if some were bigger then others.
Q2. How long have you been to circus school? What did you train? How long did you train a day? Could you share any interesting memories?
A2. I did 3 years at Ecole Nationale de Cirque de Chatellerault in France ( from 15 to 18 years old ) it is like a high school programme plus training circus 2 hours a day ( so 10 hours per week ), my speciality was dance trapeze but I also had dance classes and classes about the history of circus.
Then I did 4 years at The National Circus School of Montreal ( 18 to 22 years old ), my speciality was dance trapeze during the first years and then I did duo dance trapeze with Pierre for the next 3 years . We also had dance, theatre, singing, acro, handstand, conditioning , flexibility, a minor discipline ( hula hoop and hand to hand for me) classes…
We trained a lot there. Usually from 8h30 to 12h30 and then 13h30 to 16h30. We had physical classes and from 18h to 20h we had normal classes ( french, english, philosophy, how to manage your career…). I remember that I was so tired during this classes. I used to fall asleep on the table during the philosophy classes!!!
I had a lot of interesting memories, but my best memory is a person Elena Fomina, our trapeze coach, she was like a mother to us, she helped us to create the act, mad at us, made us work really hard on trapeze, helped us with the costumes…i know that without her I would never be where I am now!
(photo by Laurent Bugnet)
Q3. How is life to be a circus artist? What was your dream when you were a kid?
A3. It is awesome, like a dream come true! I believe that not so many people can live their passion, I know I am really lucky to be one of them. It is a passion, of course some day I am tired and I don’t want to do shows but most of the day I go and I am super happy to perform, the feeling of being on stage is really special, it is something that i can not really describe with words.
When I was a kid I wanted to be a princess ( of course…) and then I wanted to be a singer!! But when I started circus for fun ( 12 years old ish ) my dream was to be a circus artist. When I started circus for real and realized I could/will be a circus artist, I had 3 main goals/dreams for my career :
- Working for cirque du soleil ( I remember crying in front of Alegria dvd when I was 12 because I thought it was so beautiful !!)
- Cirque de demain
- Monte Carlo circus festival
I achieved this 3 in only 3 years and a half of my career. I am so thankful to all the people that has crossed my path, and also the people has been hard on us. They helped me to make it all possible.
Q4. How do you overcome difficulty? How do you manage a team work?
A4. I overcome difficulties by not being alone! I am the kind of person that doesn't like working alone!! So whenever there is a problem we just talk and think more clever way to fix it. Team work for me is easy, it is always more fun to train with people, and also we can share the works ( I take care of the paper works, emails than Jerome, he works more about artistic and finding new moves and Pierre works more about the technic).
Q5. What was your big challenges or fails?
A5. Creating the trio was a huge challenge for us because we didn’t have a lot of time, we didn’t have a coach. Jerome had never done hand to hand before, and me I only had the basics. So we had a lot of fails while training, since then I can say that Jerome and Pierre are amazing porters because I only touched the floor once by falling and it wasn’t a big fall. Doing mistakes made me learn quicker and made me trust them faster.
(photo by JP Rollin Photography)
Q6. Can you explain about Trio Vertigo? What kind of acts do you have? How do you train when you travel or live different place?
A6. So we were working the 3 of us together in GOP (Germany) with the straps and duo trapeze act. We decided to use this time to train and create an act together because Jerome and I have been together for 6 years in life and we wanted to put all the chances on our side to be able to keep working on the same contract after Germany.
We do straps, duo trapeze, hula hoop, cyr wheel and trio hand to hand.
In germany it was easy to train, every show days we came 2 hours earlier to train hand to hand. But then it got more complicated because we were working in Las Vegas and Jerome was working everywhere ( Australia, Germany...) , so we were training when he was coming to Vegas. Now it is still difficult because he is touring with Crystal in USA and Canada and we are working for mostly in Europe now.
Q7. Do you get nervous? What do you do when you get nervous ?
A7. Oh..yes I do!!! It got much better with time and experiences but I used to be sooooo nervous! Cirque de demain was only 6 months after graduating school and we didn’t had a lot of experience I was so nervous I wanted to throw up…I was so glad I wasn’t doing a solo act because I would have run away!!
When I am nervous, I pace back and forth with shaking my hands and moving my shoulder! Nobody should talk to me when I am like this!! And then I go to talk to my partners and say like "it is going to be ok", "it is just 6 minutes" "if something goes wrong during the act we take our time and we speak ok?" .
Thank you! Morgane, Pierre and Jerome!!
Facebook Official Page : Trio Vertigo