Le Patin Libre Skating Troupe

Alexandre Hamel

November 2, 2006
Article & Photo © J. Barry Mittan 

Alexandre Hamel, a former Canadian national competitor, has joined several other skaters to form Le Patin Libre (The Free Skate). The small group entertains at winter festivals and other events in Quebec on a variety of surfaces. "We started two shows on a frozen canal in St-Luc, on the South shore of Montreal, two shows on a normal inside rink in Beaconsfield, on Montreal island, and two shows in Ville St-Laurent on an outside hockey rink, also on Montreal Island," Hamel recalled.

"It was another one of my crazy ideas," he stated. "Life would be so simple without them. Seriously, I was dreaming of that since some years. And a lot of people encouraged me by telling me I could do something great with my special skating style. In 2004 and 2005, I toured with Disney On Ice. I learnt a lot about "mise en scene", character development, media promotion, leadership and show skating with that troupe. It was the best school I could have! It also gave me some money to initiate the project. So when I came back home, I was ready to make the idea alive."

"When I was younger, I experimented with a lot of weird choreography ideas and they were always crowd favorites. But, they are so weird that usual professional skating troupes can't really deal with them. So, I decided to start my own troupe to use them and make what I consider my art visible to the public. I also think that figure skating could reach more to the public in general than what it does now. I wanted to find a way to do that and to use the narrative potential of my sport. This way, even people that are not at all interested by figure skating as we see it on TV can now enjoy our beautiful sport."

"I started working on this project in the spring of 2005," Hamel stated. "I was on a one month break from a Disney On Ice tour. I consider the troop was officially formed when we all had a supper together in my apartment to discuss ideas for numbers. This was in November 2005. I started to promote the idea to many organizations holding festive outside events in winter. Our first appearances were in January 2006."

"We help any organization having special events where ice is present to reach their objective," Hamel continued. "Usually, its municipalities wanting everybody in town to have a blast. Cool purpose. Also, winters in Quebec are very long and if you don't learn how to enjoy them and just hide inside for 5 months, you'll be half-dead by March. So, our purpose is often to create a cool family happening, outside, in winter. We don't only do shows, we also animate games on ice and have skating courses for anybody who wants to join us between shows. This way, we show people how skating can be a beautiful family activity and a good way to enjoy the long Quebec's winters."

"We are four skaters," Hamel explained. "But many people help for transportation, videography, organization, music, etc. It's still probably the smallest figure skating troop in the world. Because of that, we can say that we are like those very small groups of public entertainers and circus artists. It's just the first time this concept is applied to figure skating. Cirque du Soleil started like that years ago in Quebec with 4 or 5 stilt walkers going around carnivals."

Along with Hamel, the original members of the troupe included Milena Todaro, Anthony Evans and Benoit St-Amour. "Milena and Anthony are a very talented team of ice-dancers," Hamel stated. "They skate in the senior category and are starting to have success on the international scene. They are dynamic, original and good-looking. More importantly, they are friends I like to work with. Milena now helps me in promoting the troop for next year. She studies in communication and is also very talented in this field."

"Benoit is a young skater living close to my apartment in Montreal," Hamel continued. "I coach him. He is very theatrical and always dreamt of doing ice shows. Now his dream came true and he did a great job. In "Le Patin Libre", how creative and artistic you are is much more important than how many double or triple jumps you can land. Guillaume Gfeller, an ice-dancer training with Milena and Anthony, joined us for our last appearance. He is also a great guy to work with."

Hamel is now a professional, but the other skaters are ISU eligible. They are paid according to the rules of Skate Canada. "One of the purposes of this troupe was to give good employment to skaters during the off-season," Hamel said. "If this project keeps growing, I hope the skaters in my troupe will be able to pay for a part of their training with the money they make. I find it really illogical to see talented skaters working in restaurants or shops when they have so much more to give. I remember working as a gas pump attendant while I was still competing in Senior. I would have loved to be a part of Le Patin Libre then." Hamel also coaches aspiring skaters.

"For most of the year, we each train separately," Hamel noted. "Milena and Anthony train in Ste-Julie with their coach, Julie Marcotte. I join them sometimes, even if it's mostly a school for ice-dancers. There is an inspiring atmosphere in this school and I like it. Personally, I train where I coach, when my students are late or after my lessons. During the winter, I also skate outside on a hockey rink near where I live, in a popular district of Montreal named Pointe-Saint-Charles. I go very late, normally after midnight, so I don't disturb the hockey players. I keep training all my triple jumps and I practice my programs. I like training outside. I discovered that recently. Before the shows, we train all together. It's so much fun and I never saw that much creative energy on a skating rink. We keep the location of those training sessions secret. When the troop trains together, we don't have the concept of a coach. We are more like a collective art group."

"For the group numbers, whoever brings an idea helps the others to be a part of it," Hamel said. "This year, I created the concept of the choreographies and the soundtracks so I was the one leading most of the training but I hope that each year, more and more of the shows will be created by the other skaters. Already, Milena and Anthony helped me a lot to develop my ideas. Milena is particularly creative for choreographies and she created parts of all our group numbers. I created my solos. Milena and Anthony adapted duos created by their coach Julie Marcotte. They transformed them to make them fit on the very small ice surfaces we skate on."

"This year, we created two partially different shows very inspired by Quebec folk's tradition," Hamel explained. "Our opening number was on a very well known French lullaby: "Au Clair de la Lune". Alexandra Lauzon, one of my friends who is an excellent pianist and singer, especially recorded it for us. I was doing skating moves in the studio while she was playing the music. It was funny. Anyway, this group number was a faithful image of every verse of the song. It captivated everybody, especially with the on-ice fire breathing involved in it."

"Milena and Anthony performed an Indian style number and a jive, with dynamic rock and roll music." He continued. "I did a number in which a tramp discovers a magical box out of which music comes out. There was also a short slapstick style comedy number. Our finale was on folk music from Quebec, with dynamic violins and stuff like that. Music was also recorded especially for that. The show got there through my most recent solo number about the legend of Alexis Le Trotteur, who is a folkloric hero from northern Quebec. Milena, Anthony and Benoit were also involved in this number."

"I'm also always juggling with ideas for our next shows," he continued. "I am very inspired by the jazz bars in which I hang out in Montreal. I toured in Argentina last summer and learned tango in underground dance bars in Buenos Aires. This could also lead to a new number. Milena and Anthony are taking hip-hop dance courses and Anthony does break dancing. We could also go this way. And recently I choreographed a number telling the popular story of the little match girl. There are just too much ideas going through everybody's mind now. We will come up with something that will surprise everybody."

"The point is to create numbers that tell stories and present entertaining characters," Hamel said. "Skating becomes a tool to make this alive more than the only attraction. We are very flexible in the conception of our shows. So we have many numbers that we can link together in many imaginative ways to create very short shows (15 minutes) or longer shows."

Le Patin Libre is looking forward to more shows in 2007. "With the enthusiastic reactions to all our appearances, I'm confident that we will be very busy this winter," Hamel said. "We will probably be part of bigger events. I hope this will enable the troop to hire more skaters. I have skating friends that are very original and creative and I would like them to join us. Right now, Milena and I are working on promoting our services. I like a lot the fact that the business is entirely run by skaters. I think that impressed the judges in a business contest for young entrepreneurs we won recently."

"Even if we will grow up a lot, I want to keep really close to the public with our on-ice animation." He added. "So, even if I think the future is bright for us, we will stay small and accessible to any kid who wants to join us on ice."