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Montreal’s Newest Attraction Wants to Loosen You Up

Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast

I need to loosen up, honestly.

I’m what some may call a type-A personality: I’ve ne’er met a flow with which I could go easily.

But in an era of major global, political, and personal upheaval, I’ve found a rigid stance to be far from beneficial.

Yet unlike the chorus of family, friends, and therapists who have echoed these familiar words previously, this time, I actually mean them literally.

I’m about to try my very inflexible hand at aerial silks and trapeze at Cirque Éloize in Montreal, a contemporary circus founded in the French Canadian city nearly 30 years ago. Tonight I’ll see the troupe put on their new cabaret-circus hybrid show, Celeste, at Hotel Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth. But before I can appreciate the splendor of the metaphorical “big tent” performance, it’s time to take a class in understanding the aerobics of the acrobatics.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast</div>
Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast

This is my first trip out of the United States since the onset of the pandemic. As I saw others jet off to enviable destinations near and abroad, I found my immunocompromised self far too nervous to even consider travel up until recently.

It’s been nearly a year since our northern border relaxed and Canada began accepting vaccinated American travelers with relative ease. But it wasn’t until this spring—after getting over my own (thankfully uneventful) bout of COVID and receiving my fourth vaccine—that this uptight American felt comfortable crossing onto foreign soil.

And there’s something delightfully familiar about Canada for a nervous American: It’s like home, but a little less chaotic. Add to that the benefit of practicing the nearly forgotten French I haven’t used since high school in an entirely unthreatening bilingual locale, et Montréal, c’est parfait for this near-recluse’s reentry to the world of travel.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Courtesy of Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth Hotel</div>
Courtesy of Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth Hotel

The Hotel Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth is a grand hotel conveniently located atop the Gare Centrale train station in downtown Montreal. It’s home to a historic room on the 17th floor where John Lennon and Yoko Ono once famously refused to get out of bed. During their honeymoon in the spring of 1969, the pair engaged in one of their “Bed-Ins for Peace,” protesting the war in Vietnam, as well as recording their song “Give Peace a Chance.”

A half century later, the Queen Elizabeth has turned the duo’s former room into a mini-museum where guests and fans can experience a tribute to the iconic pair.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo</div>
Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo

But the most recent innovation of Hotel Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth celebrates a different kind of art. During the early days of the pandemic, while tourism suffered across the world, the hotel faced an opportunity within a crisis. Gone were conferences and events for the foreseeable future and so they transformed former meeting rooms into the home of their new fabulous cabaret, Celeste.

The host of our galactic-inspired show is drag-artist Matthew Owen Richardson. She serves as the guide, emcee, and comedic relief on top of a captivating turn on the “wheel,” an apparatus which is basically exactly what it sounds like.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast</div>
Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast

In between several costume and wig changes—and the occasional direct interaction with the audience—Richardson mounts a giant metal hoop and rolls around the stage while in a position that would make the Vitruvian Man proud.

“When you can see smiling and laughing in the crowd,” Richardson says, “you know it’s been a good show.”

Between a hula hooping genius and an ab-inspiring “pole dance” by the so-called “Gemini Twins”—it is a great show.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast</div>
Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast

Unlike the very bendy performers of Celeste, I’m neither flexible in personality nor physicality (although I’d like to think I’m making a concerted effort to loosen up in both areas).

But right now, one of this evening’s impressively pliable performers is standing above me, saying all I have to do is kick my feet up to reach the trapeze. That way,I can swing my legs over and hoist myself up to sit on the bar.

Merde.

Something that seems so easy is, as I found out, incredibly difficult. At least for those of us lacking any athletic prowess and possessing an oft-debilitating aversion to embarrassing oneself. But not to fear, my new circus friend is there to offer an only slightly humbling assist.

After some graceless maneuvering, I’m now perched atop the bar delightfully fighting the urge to wave with a cupped hand as if I had just been crowned Miss Circus 2022.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast</div>
Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast

It’s been an odd couple of years, to put it mildly. If you find yourself, like me, looking to return to the world of travel after a temporary hiatus, look no further than our neighbors to the north.

As you try to ease up a bit and escape your rigid life-norms, Montreal can offer an opportunity to embrace a little bit of adventure, whether that’s through a fantastic show, an attempt to revive your terrible French, or the chance to cosplay joining the circus—even if just for a weekend.

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