A first show will be presented there on July 27.
This is the first phase of the church renovation and transformation project, led by Jeannot Painchaud, president and creative director of Cirque Éloize.
According to him, such a broadcast room is unique in the Magdalen Islands.
: we will be able to welcome all the Circus shows on this stageÉloize and the theater shows that we find in Montreal “,” text “:” It is becoming the largest performance hall on the Islands: we will be able to host all CirqueÉloize shows and theatrical shows on this stage. found in Montreal “}}”>It becomes the largest performance hall on the Islands: we will be able to host all the Cirque Éloize shows and theater shows in Montreal on this stage.
, he explains.
There is nothing like the Islands.
Jeannot Painchaud, President and Chief Creative Officer at Cirque Éloize (archives).
Photo : Yannick Giguere
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On Friday, parishioners were able to discover the result of a first creative residency. Two or three other shows will be presented on this new stage during the summer.
: create a scenic space which can accommodate any form of show at the same time, and which comes from abroad and from the creations that we are going to do here, in the Islands. “,” text “:” That’s the goal: create a scenic space which can accommodate any form of spectacle at the same time, and which comes from abroad and from the creations that we are going to do here, in the Islands. “}}”>That’s the goal: to create a scenic space that can accommodate any form of show at the same time, and which comes from abroad and from the creations that we are going to do here, on the Islands.
Develop a living environment
Jeannot Painchaud’s project aims to make the church a real multidisciplinary dissemination room, but also to create a large cultural center around it.
To do this, a next stage of the project will be to transform the school which adjoins the church to develop housing and local shops, a phase that would take between two and three years to complete.
The village of Havre-Aubert in the Magdalen Islands
Photo: Radio-Canada / Isabelle Larose
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What the school will allow in a second phase is to have different forms of housing, it is to have micro shops, spaces for research and for creation.
We have to create a kind of social fabric around the church, a living environment.
Jeannot Painchaud also intends to offer tourist accommodation in order to finance the project. The cost of restoring and transforming the church alone is estimated at $ 4 million.
because we will still have to find a way to pay the mortgage– but also to have spaces for seasonal workers, and special prices for artists who come to a creation residency “,” text “:” The medium-term project is to have both ‘weekly accommodation for tourism – because it will still be necessary to find a way to pay the mortgage – but also to have spaces for seasonal workers, and special prices for artists who come in creation residency “}}”>The medium-term project is to have both weekly accommodation for tourism – because it will still be necessary to find a way to pay the mortgage – but also to have spaces for seasonal workers, and special prices for artists who come to a creation residency
, he explains.
A first estimate puts the cost of restoring the church alone at around $ 2 million.
Desacralization in the fall
For her part, the president of the factory of the parish of Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation de Havre-Aubert, Jeanne Leblanc, confirms that the steps to desacralize the church have indeed started with the diocese of Gaspé.
She expects to hold the Desecration Mass in the fall.
Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation church will become the second church in the Magdalen Islands to be desecrated.
With information from Isabelle Larose
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