Playing with fire at Étrange Carnaval

Danielle Burns

danielle@qctonline.com

When you play with fire, sometimes you get burned! No one knows this better than Sarah Louis-Jean, who performed fire dancing for the first time at Étrange Carnaval Oct 24-26, the weekend before Halloween. 

Strange Carnival is a way to extend the Halloween fun since it takes place the weekend before Oct 31, as opposed to the one-day candy collection rush, said Jeanne Couture, general manager of Artefact urbain, the producer of the three-day event. In an email to the QCT she explained, “It’s an initiative by the Société de developpement commercial (SDCVQ) du Vieux-Québec, which includes more than 200 merchants, aiming to bring residents to the neighbourhood during the lull after the tourist season. It’s an opportunity to reclaim and rediscover the area – its activities, its shops, its heritage, its beauty!” 

Sarah Louis-Jean was drawn in by the “fantastical” nature of the event that the producers say is “designed to be curious, whimsical, and welcoming. It’s not scary – it’s about wonder, imagination, and community spirit.” The former Cirque du Soleil performer said, “For me, this carnival feels like a festival that’s radiant, enchanting, festive. It’s an environment that’s truly out of the ordinary…I can’t wait to transport people into a completely different universe.” 

In past editions, activities were centred around and inside the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity on Rue Sainte-Anne, but the 2025 edition was outdoors and closer to the commercial artery of Rue Saint-Jean where the Voltigeurs de Québec Band paraded on Saturday afternoon. 

City Hall was the hub for the funfair from the roaring twenties: a wandering magician pulled out micromagic with gold coins, dice and card tricks; mythical creatures paused to shake hands; a clown from a bygone era and scarlet stilt walker wandered the gardens, each one more surprising than the next. Characters from General Patente were the carnies for the free vintage games like cornole, arm wrestling, fortune telling and bean-bag toss. Grandiose pumpkin decorations and spooky lighting contributed to the mysterious atmosphere where the fountains flow in warmer months. Two food trucks, one serving churros and the other pogos, were on location to feed the monsters. Candy was on offer in the neighbourhood for costumed critters at 22 stores displaying the event logo in storefront windows.

Notre-Dame de Québec Basilica served as a dramatic backdrop to the stage set up in the square where Louis-Jean performed three 20-minute shows Saturday night. After dousing her giant cube in fuel and setting out numerous props, the artist lit a five-wick fire fan to begin the “impactful” first performance that showed off her flexibility with the ability to lift a leg vertically in the air. A family-oriented crowd lined the barrier, keeping a safe distance from the fire. 

Louis-Jean said her style tends to be “very edgy and intense” and includes a lot of props such as poi, a rope with a fireball on the end used by the Māori from New Zealand, dragon staff, buugeng and others. Her “steampunk” outfit consisted of red tights under black leather shorts with a black leather buckled corset over a ruffled high-neck shirt and a romantic braided updo. Louis-Jean loves to impart “inner strength” when she dances. She has achieved a Guinness World Record performing boleadoras – an Argentinian gaucho art form that uses ropes with plastic balls that are swung and struck on the ground to make a percussion sound. The artist got the quickest (385) taps in a minute in 2019.

The fire dancer admitted that there’s always some risk with fire, but she “never had time to be afraid” since she started manipulating it at the beginning of her circus career. “We have to be really focused, like an aerial performer.” Of course, she says, the more often you perform, the more chances there are to get burnt: “I’ve singed a few strands of hair and once lightly burnt my shoulder when I performed in the dark and couldn’t see the middle of my prop clearly. Since then, I’ve added a small tape mark so I can see it better in low light. It happens very rarely, though, thanks to the experience I’ve gained in different situations.”