E-Mail This Article to a Friend Ring in the new Cirque Éloize comes to town BY SALLY CRAGIN

Lions and tigers and bears? Oh my — but not in Cirque Éloize. This Canadian troupe brings its latest extravaganza, Nomade, At Night the Sky Is Endless, to the Wilbur Theatre on Tuesday. Aerialists and acrobats there are in abundance; also contortionists, clowns, and jugglers. But no critters, large or small. Director Daniele Finzi-Pasca, an Italian artist from Switzerland, laughs as he explains (by phone from Uruguay — ah, the glamour of international vagabondage), "I know how it’s possible to work with an artist, but I don’t know how to work with a monkey."

Nomade combines Italian theater styles with circus traditions. The show’s story line revolves around a group of itinerant travelers en route to a wedding. Each performer ‘tells’ his or her story in a variety of ways, including monologues, dance, and music. In other words, Nomade is a circus with plenty of extras beyond leotarded gymnasts bouncing off trampolines in dazzling variants on the jeté.

"We are all storytellers," Finzi-Pasca points out in his program notes. "Like nomads, circus performers live life as one long journey. The tales they tell are often wild and whimsical, and sometimes hauntingly melancholic." In Nomade, a pair of lovers finally meet — but briefly, in the air during a trapeze act. A tall clown wears a guitar, a short clown wears an accordion, and the two buffoons tango as they play each other’s instruments. Although some may recognize aspects of the original powerhouse franchise Cirque du Soleil, Cirque Éloize aims for a more intimate experience.

The company was started in 1993, by seven performers from the Magdalen Islands, a French-speaking archipelago east of Prince Edward Island. After the group graduated from Montreal’s National Circus School, they decided the big-top skills they’d learned would be best fused to theatrical forms — music, dance, and text. The name "Cirque Éloize" derives from the Madelinot term for flashes of heat lightning seen on the horizon.

Nomade, the troupe’s third production, has already toured the world for two years. With a high wire, swings, hoops, and unicycles, it offers plenty of "ooh" and "ah" moments. But Finzi-Pasca explains that "the most big risk with these so beautiful artists was to start to play and sing. These artists come from the circus school, and in general in the circus, you come, you make your act, you go backstage — finish. In this show, there are 18 people, all the time, on the stage. This was something new to see — the circus artist acting on the stage.

"When you play, you have to open your soul, and you know very well that, for an actor, is a little bit dangerous moment. For a circus artist, it’s a very new experiment."

For Finzi-Pasca, the presentation, which includes precise lighting, sound, and musical cues, is as essential as the performers’ skills. Although he doesn’t come from a circus background himself, he says that Nomade reflects his own heritage. "My father was a photographer; my mother, she paints. My work, I move what my father and my mother built."

Cirque Éloize’s Nomade, At Night the Sky Is Endless is presented by Broadway in Boston and the FleetBoston Celebrity Series January 20 through 25 at the Wilbur Theatre, 246 Tremont Street in the Theater District. Tickets, $25 to $57, are available at the Wilbur Theatre box office or the Colonial Theatre box office, 106 Boylston Street in the Theater District, or through Ticketmaster at (617) 931-2787.