Les Casaly
From Circopedia
GUILLAUME DUFRESNOY & MIREILLE FENWICK – Aerial Cradle
By Dominique Jando
Born in Grand-Lancy, Switzerland, and the daughter of an American father and a Swiss mother, Mireille Fenwick studied Latin before realizing her childhood dream: To run away and join the circus. In 1977, she enrolled in Alexis Gruss’s Conservatoire National des Arts du Cirque (École au Carré), the first professional circus school in Western Europe, which had opened in Paris only three years earlier. There, she met for the first time Guillaume Dufresnoy (born on October 26, 1959 in Bordeaux, France), who had also abandoned a promising career—in his case as an engineer—to join the circus.
A year later, Mireille made her debut as a member of the resident company of Alexis Gruss’s Cirque à l’ancienne in Paris. An acrobat and aerialist, she performed a trampoline act that mixed these two disciplines. In the years that followed, she pursued a performing career in various European circuses, from Finland to Sicily.
Meanwhile, Guillaume created his own aerial perch (bambou) act, Les Casaly, with another École au Carré graduate, Frédérique Vanetti. While Guillaume was performing his aerial act in Switzerland, he and Mireille became reacquainted. Deciding to join forces, they created an aerial cradle act under the guidance of a legendary master, Jean Palacy. In his time, Palacy had revolutionized aerial cradle acts by introducing safety nets, an innovation that allowed the focus of the acts to shift away from the perception of danger to the intricacy and inherent interest of the tricks themselves.
Les Casaly debuted in 1985 at Circus Nock in Switzerland, where they met with immediate success. In 1986, they were awarded a Silver Medal at the Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in Paris. They were then featured at their alma mater, Alexis Gruss’s Cirque à l’ancienne. The following year, Les Casaly made their American debut at the Big Apple Circus, where they would remain until 1990, performing their cradle act and, as members of the circus's resident company, a short-distance flying trapeze act.
In 1991, at Circus Knie in Switzerland, Les Casaly performed their cradle act for the final time. Guillaume and Mireille separated soon after. Guillaume returned to the Big Apple Circus, where he served as Performance Director and production manager until 1997, when he became General Manager of the touring unit, eventually rising to the post of Vice-President. In 2009, he succeeded Paul Binder as the Big Apple Circus’s Artistic Director.
Mireille returned to New York City and worked in the theater. She studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute and at New York University. She co-created a theater company, The Muse, worked at the Alliance Française, and eventually settled in Paris, where she married and had two daughters. While in Paris, she earned a degree in performing-arts administration from the Université de Paris-Nanterre and worked as tour and media manager for the Comédie Française, the illustrious French national theater company.
See Also
- Video: Les Casaly, Aerial Cradle, in the Big Apple Circus production of 1001 Arabian Nights at The Big Apple Circus (1987)
- Video: Les Casaly, Aerial Cradle, in the Big Apple Circus production of The Big Apple Circus Meets the Monkey King (1988)
