Montreal Is a Complete Circus, and the Whole World Knows It

If you want to understand just how important Montreal’s standing is in the world of circus arts, ask Aaron Marquise what happens when he introduces himself abroad at other festivals.

"The second I say I'm from Montreal," says Marquise, deputy director of circus arts programming and development at TOHU and MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE (MCC), "you can feel this shift in the conversation."

The city has earned its rep, and not because of any single company or style, but an ecosystem: the National Circus School, Les 7 doigts de la main, Cirque Éloize, and decades upon decades of artists who have trained here and since toured the world. The depth and breadth of what circus is and can be goes deeper and wider than you probably think. Not to knock it, but even seeing a show from a household name like Cirque du Soleil is simply one channel on a very large dial. “It's like cinema,” Marquise says. “You have a Martin Scorsese and you have a Wes Anderson. They're all within the discipline of film, but they're making such different work."

MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE exists to show you the range and, ideally, to challenge you a little in the process.

Now in its 17th edition and running from July 2 to 12 in 2026, MCC has grown over the years to become the largest international contemporary circus festival in North America. This year's lineup brings companies from France, the Czech Republic, England, Finland, New Zealand, and Quebec across five venues, with a full program of free outdoor programming taking over Quartier Latin and extending into neighbourhoods across the city. Diving champion, former circus artist, and TV host Lysanne Richard serves as this year's festival ambassador.

Here's everything else you need to know.

Above: Photographs by Pierre Planchenault, JF Savaria & St.art, Cirk La Putyka

At TOHU: Where the Festival Sets the Standard

TOHU, the circus venue at the heart of the Cité des arts du cirque in Saint-Michel, is the festival's anchor. Its circular room is one of very few venues in North America built from the ground up to host large-scale international circus production; most of what MCC shows there simply can't be staged anywhere else on the continent. Two shows take it over this year, one per week.

Getting there: TOHU is at 2345 rue Jarry Est. Metro to Iberville (bus 94), Jarry (bus 193), or Crémazie (bus 192 or 460). Bixi station at the corner of Paul Boutet and Jarry Est.

La Chute des Anges — Cie L'Oublié(e) / Raphaëlle Boitel (France) July 2–5 | TOHU Salle Circulaire | Ages 8+ | From $30.50

The festival opens here: French director Raphaëlle Boitel has spent her career building work at the crossroads of circus, dance, theatre, and cinema, and La Chute des Anges is one of the pieces that cemented her international reputation. Set in a controlled future where machines reign and angels have lost the ability to fly, the show uses Chinese pole, aerial work, and acrobatics in service of a story about conformity, resistance, and the stubborn human desire for freedom. The New York Times described it as "a blend of circus and dance set in a mechanized dystopia where the inhabitants long for human connection." Seventy minutes. Book early.

St.art — Cirk La Putyka (Czech Republic) July 7–12 | TOHU Salle Circulaire | Ages 6+ | From $32.50

Prague's Cirk La Putyka has been rewriting the definition of circus for nearly two decades, and St.art takes on professional sport as its subject for harder questions about ambition, sacrifice, and what the body is really capable of. Performed by real athletes including a Czech trampoline champion, the show blurs the line between athletic performance and circus performance until both feel like something new. Marquise, who saw it in Prague before programming it, describes a scene where the cast simply runs in place for several minutes. "You go, 'Well, this isn't circus.' And then you go, 'But what is circus for me?' It's risk. It's pushing the human body to certain limits within an artistic setting." Seventy-five minutes.

At Studio de l'Espace St-Denis: The Full Spectrum

The Studio de l'Espace St-Denis, at 1594 rue Saint-Denis (metro Berri-UQAM), runs four different productions across the 11 days—the widest programming range of any venue this year. There's something here for a first-timer looking for an easy entry point, a family with young kids, and a devotee who's already seen most of what's touring.

Défis Déjantés — Three Legged Race Productions (England) July 2–12 | Ages 12+ | From $52.15

Three Legged Race Productions came to MCC in 2024 with their Sophie's Surprise series and became one of the fastest crowd favourites in recent festival memory. Défis Déjantés is a world premiere built exclusively for this edition: a neon-lit circus cabaret that reconstructs the aesthetic of 1980s television game shows, complete with over-the-top hosts and increasingly unhinged rules. Audience members compete in challenges between death-defying circus acts.

Founded by former Cirque du Soleil veterans Katharine Arnold, Isis Clegg-Vinell, and Nathan Price, the company knows exactly where the line between entertainment and spectacle falls—and how to blow past it. This is the show to bring the skeptic in your life to.

Searching for Love — Jerry Tremblay (Quebec) July 3, 4, 8 & 9 | Ages 16+ | From $47.95

Jerry Tremblay—the character, not the person—is socially maladroit, deeply earnest, and desperately in search of love. Played by circus artist Maxime Poulin, he became a household name in Quebec after winning the 2025 edition of Quel Talent!, and the version of Searching for Love presented here is a one-of-a-kind edition created exclusively for MCC: immersive, reworked, and built for a more intimate setting than most audiences will have encountered it in. An explosive mix of acrobatics and cringe-comedy with more genuine warmth underneath than the premise suggests.

Drôle de Monstre! — TOBOSO & Trygve Wakenshaw (New Zealand / Czech Republic) July 4–5 | Ages 6+ | From $19.89

A five-star Edinburgh Festivals pick co-created with German theatre company TOBOSO. Trygve Wakenshaw plays a hideous, spiky, deeply lonely monster who turns out to be considerably more fascinating than frightening, in a 55-minute show that's funny and strange in equal measure and works at least as well for adults as for the children it's nominally aimed at. Under $20 a ticket, it’s one of the best-value seats in the festival.

Équipage Recherché — Le Cirque Collini (Quebec) July 11–12 | Ages 4+ | From $19.89

Rouyn-Noranda's Cirque Collini closes out the St-Denis programming with an adventure story built around Captain Madjack Rackham's search for one final crew member, and the audience witnesses the grand assembly. Aerial acrobatics, hand-to-hand work, stage combat, and an original score give this 50-minute show more depth than the family-friendly label implies. A strong pick for the festival's final weekend.

At the BAnQ Auditorium: Intimate and Worth the Detour

The Auditorium de la Grande Bibliothèque is an unexpected circus venue, and that’s precisely why you should go. The BAnQ sits at the corner of de Maisonneuve and Berri, a short walk from the Studio de l'Espace St-Denis; the two venues can easily anchor an evening in Quartier Latin. The three shows programmed here this year are the most introspective of the festival, leaning into autobiography, physical endurance, and quiet virtuosity.

Silly Little Things — Trygve Wakenshaw (New Zealand / Czech Republic) July 3–6 | Ages 12+ | From $37

Ranked among the highest-rated comedy shows at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe, Silly Little Things is Trygve Wakenshaw performing a silent, hour-long show about friendship, absurdity, and the small stupid things that make or break a relationship. He comes out in a black shirt and black pants and builds a complete world from nothing. Neil Patrick Harris called him an "exquisite, uncanny physical performer." Marquise reaches for standup comedy as the comparison: "It's very similar to standup—but circus-brained." The festival's clearest don't-miss, at $37.

20 Years Later, Still Here! — Lotta & Stina (Finland) July 8–11 | Ages 12+ | From $37

Finnish duo Lotta Paavilainen and Stina Kopra have been working together since 2001 and are the only female duo in the world practicing rola-bola acrobatics at this level. Their autobiographical show traces 20 years in circus—the glamour and the packed venues, the grinding training hours, and the things that tend not to make it into press materials, including the experience of hiding pregnancies from employers out of fear of losing their contracts. It's funny, acrobatic, and considerably more direct about the realities of a life in performance than most of what you'd find at a mainstream circus festival. iScene gave it five stars and called it "a story that goes straight to the heart."

La Bagatelle du Roi des Miettes — La Croustade (Quebec) July 8–11 | Ages 6+ | From $37

Quebec company La Croustade describes their show in sensory terms: the softness of pastel colours, the taste of vanilla frosting, the thrill of unwrapping a gift. What that looks like in practice is a solo multidisciplinary performance by Vincent Jutras that moves between circus, dance, skateboarding, object manipulation, and theatre without announcing the transitions. It's lighter in tone than the shows it shares the BAnQ with, and the lightness is deliberate. There's real technical and artistic precision underneath it.

Out in the Open: Free Programming

A significant portion of MCC's programming this year costs nothing. The festival has built what amounts to a dedicated outdoor circus quarter in Quartier Latin, with La Circothèque (a new space created this year for families) anchoring the corner of Ontario East and Berri (July 2–12, daily 3–8 p.m., closed Monday July 6) and programming radiating outward from there. A short walk away at Place Pasteur, CIRQU'EASY—now in its fifth year—transforms the UQAM plaza into an immersive perceptual installation every evening from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. (July 3–13, closed Monday July 6). La Distillerie des 3 Lacs runs a bar on site; spontaneous circus performances happen throughout the night; the space gets steadily stranger the later it gets (in a good way).

Beyond Quartier Latin, The Neighborhood Tour fans out across the city from July 2 to 12, bringing aerial arts, clowning, acrobatics, juggling workshops, stilt walkers, and circus performances to Saint-Léonard, Verdun, Montréal-Nord, Le Village, the Plateau, and beyond. The full schedule and locations are at montrealcompletementcirque.com; the headline outdoor shows generally run at 7 or 7:30 p.m. in each neighbourhood. For anyone approaching contemporary circus for the first time, these are a good place to start.

How to Navigate a Circus

TOHU is a destination in its own right in Saint-Michel, and worth planning a dedicated evening around. The Quartier Latin cluster is walkable in a single night: a show at the Studio de l'Espace St-Denis, a detour through La Circothèque, drinks at CIRQU'EASY. It's genuinely possible to spend four or five hours in that neighbourhood without running out of things to see.

Book early for La Chute des Anges and St.art at TOHU. The circular room is intimate and both shows carry international reputations that tend to sell out MCC's opening programming first. For most other shows, a few days in advance is sufficient, though the first weekend (July 4–5) will be the busiest of the run.

TOHU membership gets you up to 25% off ticket prices across all shows. Worth calculating if you're planning to see three or more.

Marquise's one piece of advice for the first-timer: "See as much as you can, and take a risk on something that doesn't immediately appeal to you. We're really offering the best of what circus has to offer in the world right now. That's the best way to see where it's going."