At the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, the circus artist from Lodève Gwendal Beylier was on the Pont Neuf!

La compagnie XY, associée à la compagnie Gratte-ciel, a fait montre de son incroyable talent lors de la cérémonie d’ouverture des JO. MAXPPP – LP/Fred Dugit

Based in Lodève for seven years, Gwendal Beylier is a high-level circus performer: with the XY company, he took part in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris on Friday evening.

“I wanted to walk on my hands and make people laugh”, remembers Gwendal Beylier, a 38-year-old circus performer, looking back on the beginnings of his love for the circus. On the occasion of the Olympic Games in Paris, he was selected with the XY company and the Gratte-Ciel company to perform at the opening ceremony on the Pont-Neuf on July 26.

On the theme of love, thirty-six acrobats in multicoloured costumes perform acrobatics, while others wobble on swinging masts and couples kiss in front of thousands of spectators and millions of television viewers. The staging was done by Rachid Ouramdane, also director of the Théâtre de Chaillot. At the same time, the singer Marina Viotti performs the aria from Carmen, “Love is a rebel bird”.

Gwendal has lived in Lodève for seven years, where he is also a tattoo artist.

It was during a meeting, eight months earlier, that Gwendal learned of his selection for the ceremony. “It was really nice to play on this bridge, in Paris, a beautiful city with a great history”, he says. Despite the rain, the acrobats gave it their all: “It could have been dangerous for us, normally we adapt, but here we wanted to do it all”. He will keep a great energy of sharing in memory of this experience. “There were people everywhere, even on the roofs, it was like Mary Poppins!”, he exclaims.

The acrobats and dancers of the XY Company adapted to the rainy context of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

He is back from an intensive month-long tour with many projects, including Möbius Morphosis, created as part of the Cultural Olympiads, also directed by Rachid Ouramdane and performed at the Panthéon from July 16 to 18. A performance combining song, dance and acrobatics with a hundred performers: “We worked with the Lyon ballet and the Maîtrise de Radio France choir, it was incredible, certainly my best experience”, he says.

His specialty: head balancing

From the age of 8, he developed a passion for acrobatics. He practiced for four years at the Balthazar school in parallel with his high school, then gradually trained in different schools in France: La Piste d'Azur in Cannes, Ménival in Lyon, and Lomme in Lille where he completed his training in 2009. His specialty is head balancing: “I started as a tightrope walker and clown, and I evolved towards acrobatics and acrobatic lifts”, he explains. In 2012, he joined the world-renowned company “XY”. With her, he will have traveled a lot: New York, Bogota, Tokyo, Hong Kong…“I've been around the world twice” he said with a laugh.

Settled in Lodève for seven years, he is also a DJ and tattoo artist in his spare time. Today he wants to focus on the “trash” clown. Many future projects are swarming in his mind: “I bought a big top and with my new collective the Mouton à 5 pattes, I will perform the creation “Freaks Show”, a curiosity cabaret with clown“. The first will be in Ceyras in November.

After a four-day break, he will be back on tour from August 2 to 4 in Pernes-les-Fontaines, from August 6 to 8 at the Festival Précaire in Haute-Vienne, and on the 18th in Argentat, among others.

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