NEW LIFE IN DEATH
Cirque du Soleil co-founder Guy Laliberté has a plan to redefine the commemoration of death,
MONTREAL— What could an encore possibly entail for a man who has reinvented the modern circus, travelled to space and banked a few billion dollars?
Guy Laliberté, Quebec’s famous fire-eating entrepreneur, won’t talk publicly about his next act yet, but the man behind Cirque du Soleil appears intent on redefining the commemoration of death, just in time for an aging population that has nothing but time to ponder and plan its end-of-life legacies.
It’s a novel idea with a growing market and those who are paid to think about death say that it, or something like it, is desperately needed to fill the spiritual and emotional void of modern funeral rites that have been rather brusquely stripped of religious traditions that gave meaning to the pain and grief of a loved one lost.
It is an absence felt throughout the western world, but particularly so in a Quebec that was dominated by the Catholic Church two generations ago but now defines itself by its opposition to religious mores.
Like most everything else, Laliberté has a grand vision for the business venture that his people have only described as “embryonic.” His baby, for example, already has a name: Pangéa, a reference to the supercontinent said to have formed 300 million years ago and broken apart 100 million years ago.
It also has a fairly detailed plan, according to an article published in Montreal’s Le Devoir last month that appeared to have been meticulously planned to feel out the public’s interest. Reaction to the project has been decidedly mixed.
The goal is reportedly to create both a physical and virtual space to celebrate death, complete with a commemorative footpath, an animal cemetery, a restaurant and private funeral parlour that will make use of undisclosed new technologies that are being developed.
While there are still many questions, Nicole Bouchard, a theologian and researcher, said that what she has heard so far is something that might address what many in the end-of-life industry feel is a “spiritual poverty” that has afflicted modern death rituals.
The problem is particularly pronounced in Quebec, where, during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, the province cast off codified religious ceremonies designed and refined over thousands of years to both give meaning to a life’s last act and kick off the grieving for those left behind.
“With the church, there was a code, but now the codes are no longer there and people are reinventing them.” THEOLOGIAN NICOLE BOUCHARD ON FUNERAL RITES
Today, Quebecers are struggling to come up with appropriate substitutes, said Bouchard, who is a professor at the Université de Québec à Chicoutimi.
She recounted how one funeral director sought her advice when those planning the funeral of a young accident victim said they wanted to toast the deceased with his favourite beer when the coffin was closed, a traditionally solemn moment in the funeral rite because it is the last time the living will see the face of the deceased.
“With the church, there was a code, but now the codes are no longer there and people are reinventing them, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse,” said Bouchard, whose expertise is in life rituals and cultural symbols.
If you botch the improvised ritual at a wedding, there’s always the possibility of a do-over. Get it wrong at a loved one’s funeral and it stays wrong forever.
Bouchard says the current absence is crying out to be filled by the mind and talents of someone used to evoking emotions and using earthly symbols to signify something greater than our individual selves.
“We are dealing with the symbolic. It can’t come from a simple busi- nessman whose background is in administration,” Bouchard said. “I think it takes an artist, someone who has thought about symbolism, and I think the team from Cirque du Soleil have demonstrated that they can do that.”
There are, of course, many hurdles Laliberté’s project must pass — and pass quickly — if it is to see the light of day in time for Montreal’s 375th anniversary in 2017, the reason for which Mayor Denis Coderre has said he first approached the entertainer and businessman.
Greater than any is getting the public’s blessing to sell off to a private developer a parcel of St. Helen’s Island that was christened on May 28, 1611 by Samuel de Champlain himself in tribute to his wife.
The park was a French military outpost until the British conquest. The Brits used it as a staging point to defend Montreal against an American invasion from the south.
There is already a small military cemetery dating to the mid-1800s that holds the remains of several dozen British soldiers as well as their wives and children. But the land is more commonly known as the site of a city-run amusement park, La Ronde, and the Biosphere, a federally run museum dedicated to the environment.
But with the right mix of force to take on the critics and charm to win over the citizenry, Montreal could soon give life to a monument honouring death. The result, coming from a man who has shown he has imagination in spades, could be an incredible thing. En Scène is a monthly column on Quebec culture. awoods@thestar.ca