“Three years ago, it was over for me to perform,” confides Marie-Joe Thério, who was the victim of a serious accident in Costa Rica. The singer, who participated in a few festivals this summer, will be back in theaters this fall to celebrate the 20th anniversary of her album The Maline.
After falling from a ladder while she was traveling in Costa Rica, Marie-Jo Thério had the nerves in her right hand crushed, two fingers damaged, and severe neuropathic pain. She had to be operated on four times, which required many months of rehabilitation.
Conciliatory, the singer-songwriter from New Brunswick had to resolve to consider the possibility of no longer making a living from her profession.
“I thought I would never go back on stage. I went through a real rough patch,” the musician confided to Journal.
“I’m not someone who only matters for that [la musique] to be, in life. I have a relationship with life where I like to live intensely, I like encounters, travel, contemplation, also being in very simple spaces. So I had put myself a little under a warm and comfortable lantern where I said to myself “Well, that’ll be it”, she adds.
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Find the flame again
Yet a small wick has ignited again.
“I said to myself: ‘What I know how to do is light stars, carry a magic wand and try to build something beautiful to offer to people.’ So, I dove into it,” continues the woman who returned to the stage for a few shows last fall.
A pianist joined her and her band for a while. Slowly, Marie-Jo Thério started playing the piano again.
“It’s not quite like before, but the adrenaline is something strong. When you’re on stage, you don’t feel pain, you don’t think about it, you’re so whole and you feel alive. This space, I know today the price to pay and the privilege. I can’t wait to live all these moments on stage,” she breathes.
The Acadian musician admits to having “a joyful tendency to want to juggle with the present moment.”
“Life is made of that. Accidents exist in life and I, perhaps, have a nature that is made of resilience and the ability to bounce back. In fact, I really realized it. But whatever happens, as long as we have the capacity, we have to go for it! Because, we are not eternal, anyway” she continues.
Marie-Jo Thério will present her show The Maline, 20 years and some moons in various Quebec venues in September and October 2024. It will notably be at the Grand Théâtre de Québec on September 12 and at the Théâtre Maisonneuve at Place des Arts in Montreal on October 30.
