La TOHU is a non-profit organization founded by En Piste (the national association of circus arts), the National Circus School and Cirque du Soleil.

Up and running since June 2004, La TOHU is now one of the world's largest gathering places for circus arts training, creation, production and performance. It is remarkable not only for its facilities but also for the extraordinary influence its citizens exercise on the international stage.

In addition to managing the site, La TOHU puts on programming designed to bring life to the public spaces it occupies and administers. La TOHU designs and hosts the ecology programs in the main Pavilion and the activities in the St-Michel Environmental Complex.

La TOHU is already a place where neighbourhood people meet and share ideas, and we continue to encourage local residents to become full participants in the economic and cultural life of their city.

1999: The circus arts milieu comes into the picture

In 1999, a grand vision was emerging in the Quebec circus arts milieu: assembling a critical mass of circus arts creation, training, production and performance infrastructures would enable Montreal to take its place as an international capital in this rapidly evolving cultural sector.

The decision on the part of the three founding partners to develop this complex in the impoverished neighbourhood of Saint-Michel, and at the entrance of an urban landfill site, was the first manifestation of the commitment to the tripartite nature of the mission.

2003 : Cité des arts du cirque becomes La TOHU

In June 2003, the organization changed its name from Cité des arts du cirque to La TOHU in order to illustrate the diversity of its mission, the uniqueness and originality of the project, as well as the wide range of actions the organization is taking to fill its cultural, environmental and social objectives. La TOHU comes from the francophone term "TOHU-bohu", a cross between harum-scarum and pandemonium with an added element of fertile confusion, like the state of the Earth at the moment of its creation. It also evokes the seething, bubbling chaos that comes before renewal.

Along with a new name, La TOHU also adopted a new logo which actually has five variations, again to symbolise transformation, constant movement and the energy that feeds creation.

La TOHU' MISSION

CULTURAL MISSION: To secure Montreal's place as an international circus arts capital.

The first aspect of our mission centers around the goal of promoting the creativity, expertise, talent and entrepreneurship of Quebec's circus sector. Back in the 1980s, Montreal was already home to the National Circus School, which has become one of the most prestigious of its kind in the world. Also part of Montreal's circus landscape was Cirque du Soleil, a company that has acquired international leadership in the industry. Therefore, by the end of the 1990s, aflood with human and material potential, Montreal was ready for the appearance of a specialized "circus city", a TOHU.

Today, public and private investments of over $73 million have flowed in to support La TOHU project, located right next to the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex.

In 2000 (and again in 2007), Cirque du Soleil invested in the expansion of its international headquarters, located on 2nd Avenue, North of Jarry Street. In June 2003, the company also opened an artists' residence to facilitate access to training and practice. Moreover, the construction of the National Circus School's new installations, at the corner of Jarry Street and 2nd Avenue, was completed at the end of 2003.

To be able to offer the public innovative circus arts programming, La TOHU now has its own public Pavilion. Located at the corner of Jarry and Iberville Streets, the building houses the first circular performance hall in Canada specifically built for circus arts, an exhibition room, a reception hall and an artists workshop, as well as La TOHU's administrative offices. Offering a variety of free cultural and environmental activities, the Pavilion also plays the role of welcome center to the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex (CESM).

Cirque du Soleil, the National Circus School and La TOHU: three independent organizations gathered together on the borders of the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex to create a new and exciting circus microcosm : La TOHU.

ENVIRONMENTAL MISSION: To actively participate in the revitalization of the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex (of the largest urban landfill site in North America)

La TOHU chose to put down roots on the borders of the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex (CESM), a vast 192-hectare territory that was a limestone quarry at the turn of the 20th century. National Quarry sold the property to Miron in 1947 and, beginning in 1968, the area was gradually turned into a landfill site. By the end of the 1980s, the site received nearly a million tons of waste every year!

After receiving our green bags for over 20 years, the landfill site and surrounding areas were acquired by the City of Montreal in 1988. Renamed the Centre de tri et d'élimination des déchets (waste sorting and elimination center), the site eventually became the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex and the focus of the most extensive environmental rehabilitation project ever undertaken by the City. The CESM development plan calls for the site to be transformed into an urban and ever-changing park with educational, cultural, sports and commercial-industrial sectors.

La TOHU occupies the cultural corner, i.e. the southeast sector of the CESM. Our neighbors make up the Complex's environmental sector: Gazmont, the Centre de tri des matières recyclables de Montréal (recycling center), the Saint-Michel Eco-Centre, and the Centre d'expertise sur les matières résiduelles and its technology showcase. The City of Montreal has given La TOHU the mandate to design and present the cultural and educational programming for the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex. Among its many roles, La TOHU's Pavilion will serve as the CESM's welcome center and will constitute the rallying point for all activities that take place at the site. La TOHU also expresses its concern for environmental protection by other means. Indeed, the Pavilion was designed to reflect La TOHU's environmental values: from construction to utilization to eventual demolition, every stage of the building's life was designed to support the values of ecology, recycling, recovery and renewable energy sources.

The decision to build new circus infrastructures near an old dumpsite and to take charge of the CESM programming demonstrates our commitment to participate in the renewal of a district that was once a victim of environmental shortsightedness. In this sense, La TOHU is unique within Canada and in the world. Our involvement in the CESM rehabilitation project will help encourage the community to make this promising site its own.

La TOHU's Pavilion is green in spirit and in fact, in its relationship with its environment and with its users. Its mission not only involves making arts and culture readily available, but also consists in informing and raising environmental concern amongst visitors. Firstly, the building that won Canada Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification serves as a model of green architecture by the very nature of its construction. The sensible use of renewable energies for heating and cooling ensures that greenhouse gas emissions are almost eliminated.

As a visual proof of La TOHU's commitment to ecologically-sound practices, the ice bunker which serves to cool the performance hall is visible through a glass floor. Also, recycled materials and components (such as metal beams) have been integrated in the structure, some of them exposed to the visitor's eye. Secondly, to fulfill its role as the CESM's welcome Pavilion, the building is also home to exhibits and guided tours on environmental issues.

Guided Tours : Discover La TOHU and the Saint-Michel Environmental complex (CESM)

The Saint-Michel Environmental Complex

COMMUNITY MISSION: To contribute to the cultural, social and economic development of the Saint-Michel neighbourhood in Montreal.

La TOHU is located in Saint-Michel, the eastern section of the Villeray/Saint-Michel/ Parc-Extension District. A central part of the organization's mission is to participate in the economic, social and cultural development of the area. Therefore, a real sensitivity to the needs of the neighbourhood has been a crucial factor in all La TOHU's decisions.

In 1996 (Cirque du Soleil) and in 2003-2004 (National circus School), the construction of architecturally innovative buildings has already enriched the district and made it more appealing. Furthermore, in the summer of 2004, La TOHU gave Saint-Michel its first cultural performance venue. In addition to hosting various high-profile circus events, La TOHU's Pavilion offer free services and activities to neighbourhood residents. The building is surrounded by a public square where the community can meet all year long. La TOHU's programming team also organizes special events for the neighbourhood to encourage district residents to adopt the space as their own.

Service at La TOHU is provided entirely by people from the St-Michel neighbourhood. All the staff you meet, from the parking lot to the Bistro, the cloakroom and the circus hall, have one thing in common:

La TOHU decided it would be run on social economy principles. As an organization, it provides a space for innovation that also responds to the needs of the community with which it maintains particularly strong ties. Its goals include things like being useful to society, individual and collective responsibility, community renewal, and job creation, and it integrates its development strategies and daily operations within the larger perspective of sustainable development.

Subcontractors at La TOHU include La Puce (information systems), Novaide (maintenance) and Productions Jeun'Est (stage technicians) - all businesses that explicitly recognize the social aspects of the economy, as their ethics and operations testify.

La TOHU wants to show that culture is a driving force in the economy, something that can happen while respecting the environment and working alongside a community.

La TOHU truly is a space for coming together to create something new and celebrate the hopes and achievements of individuals, businesses and associations that are taking an active role in circus arts, the environment, and community development.

La TOHU has taken up the challenge, using the extraordinary visibility and appeal of the circus to make people aware of environmental issues, and of economic development based on the inclusion of marginalized groups. This convergence makes La TOHU an innovative force in urban renewal - one of the fundamental components of sustainable development.

"La TOHU is the triumph of the imagination and savoir-faire over freeways, poverty, decay and the stink of garbage. It is the response of a new kind of Quebec engineering to unfettered and irresponsible land development. It is the flower that blooms in the compost heap. In the end, it is Montreal itself being reborn from its ashes in a joyful hubbub of activity." La Presse, Montréal