5 Questions with Le Patin Libre's Alexandre Hamel
1) When did you realize there was untapped potential for expression in this style of performance?
When I was a young traditional figure skating champion, my parents and coaches sold my performances to local figure skating clubs organizing year-end reviews. It was very lucrative and fun. I had a cowboy number, a disco number, a Backstreet Boys number.
At some point, after a few years of this, I started to put together weird things: a fire breathing number, a tap skating number, a video game themed number. And I got accompanied by other younger skaters who wanted in. The public loved it although it really challenged expectations in the figure skating world. I was maybe 16 years old at the time. And I remember thinking, “Hey, this could turn into a career. I get paid and it's much more fun than competitions!”
So, after quitting competitions and quitting Disney on Ice, I started the company. We began by selling shows to winter carnivals in Quebec.
2) How would you describe the works that you typically create?
What Le Patin Libre creates now is mostly choreographic. We choreograph the speed and virtuosity of extremely skilled and athletic figure skaters. So, it's not a competitive display. It's about creating something beautiful. Yes, it's impressive, like competitions. But that's not the goal. We strive for beauty and poetry.
3) For those less familiar with ice skating, can you speak to what “glide” is and what makes it so vital to Le Patin Libre’s work?
Glide is the only thing that makes skating unique and different from circus arts, dance and other shows. Glide allows us to zip through space at very high speed even while immobile. It's the basic unit of our art. Because it's something exclusive to our medium, this dedication and understanding allows us to claim modernity. Just like when architects understood that showing the beams was pure architecture, and so they stopped decorating with marble and statues. We understand that showing the pure glide is interesting and we do not need the sparkles that was added on top of that by traditional figure skating. We can add these sparkles, jumps and acrobatics. But we can also do without. Glide thus allowed us to become the first consciously modern skaters.
4) What themes does Le Patin Libre pursue in its work?
Murmuration is about togetherness. Togetherness is great, inspiring and energizing. But it can also be dangerous, polarizing and worrying. That's why we were able to build a thrilling show around it. There are moments of pure beautiful harmony. But there are also moments of in-fighting, war and bullying.
5) What role does the dancer/choreographer have in today’s world?
There are some dancers and choreographers daring to challenge dance, the world and society. They feel a bit dangerous, and I love that. I feel that with their movements, they express stuff we could not write or say. This is what makes dance exciting, sexy and thrilling. Recently, I felt that excitement a lot for urban dance. Some circus artists are also doing very weird things that have this edge. The world needs to be surprised and challenged. The world needs a code to exchange ideas that could not be said verbally.
Check out People Watching. Their most recent piece is Playing Dead. Extreme circus virtuosos from Montreal doing something even our edgy circus world doesn't know what to do with.
Bonus question: I never start my day without _________.
Playing with my daughter and having a coffee with her mother—my lover and a skater in the show, who also co-directs the company.
