When The Gazette contacted circus director Firenza Guidi in Wales last week, she had just arrived home from a gig in Italy and was finishing up a conversation with her technical director on Skype. He was in Montreal giving Guidi a virtual tour of the circus theatre Tohu. She was excited by the look of Tohu's control booth.

"I would like the artists to perform in the booth," she said. "We'll put our control panel down at the audience level. We need to be where the audience is to see and hear what the audience sees and hears.

"I always get to know the space we will be performing in and make adjustments, depending on the feel of the place. I call it being 'site responsive.' "

Guidi was talking about the Cardiff-based contemporary-circus troupe NoFit State's upcoming North American premiere of its production Tabu as part of the inaugural edition of the Montreal completement cirque festival.

The circus festival features ticketed events, free shows and activities and exhibits for all ages, at 13 venues, with performances by artists from Spain, Australia, Germany, Belgium, Canada and Wales, from Thursday to July 25.

The festival opens under the big top in Old Montreal with Montreal troupe Cirque Eloize's iD. The multimedia circus creation, directed by Jeannot Painchaud and choreographed by Mourad Merzouki, studies the nature of identity and individuality within a futuristic urban environment and is set to a rocking original score by Jean-Phi Goncalves and Alex McMahon. The show played in South Korea for three months last year.

NoFit State opens with Tabu at Tohu on July 12.

"Tabu is about how people deal with fear -fear of abandonment, or fear of falling in love," Guidi said. "We all have fears. To see this embodied in circus -it becomes a paradox -exploring fear by celebrating daring."

The audience does not sit during a Tabu performance. Instead, people move about, often inches away from the action. "The audience is a co-player," Guidi said. "You enter into the action and remain an active part of the performance."

Tabu's text is inspired by writing submitted by the performers, by Guidi herself and by Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. An original score by Peter Swaffer Reynolds is played live.

Guidi aims to tap into the humanity of the performers and she uses the text to flesh out their personalities.

"I see a man or a woman, not a machine," Guidi said. "I draw out the vulnerability, what makes them human. I am bored with just circus tricks. After a while, I say, 'so what?' There has to be something else."

Tabu is an all-ages show.

A selection of other Montreal completement cirque festival highlights:

Three Belgian troupes are

coming to town. Juggling troupe M2 struts its stuff at Usine C, July 15-17, then

Les Mains Sales perform Sway -about a love triangle -at Usine C, July 21-24. Clown duo Tous Cousins! is at Le Lion d'or, July 15-16 and 18.

Australia's A4 Circus Ensemble performs Downpour -inspired by Dostoyevsky's short story White Nights -at Studio B, July 16-18; Les 7 doigts de la main performs its fabulous, but definitely grown-up, Cabaret at the Olympia, July 13-24, and Germany's clown duo Habbe & Meik performs at Espace Go, July 20-22.

Free events take place at Tohu July 18 and 25 at 3:30 p.m.; on St. Denis St. in the Latin Quarter, July 8-10, 15-17 and 22-24; at Parc Desmarchais in Verdun, with the participation of Verdun's circus school, July 16-17 at 7 p.m.; and Spain's Malaje fuses circus skills and flamenco arts at the CCSE Maisonneuve tent set up onthecornerof OntarioSt. and William David St., July 23 at 9:30 p.m., July 24 at 8 p.m. and July 25 at 3 p.m. Check out circus-related exhibits at the Montreal Fine Arts Museum, the Mc-Cord Museum and Tohu, and hang out with festivalgoers and artists at festival headquarters at the corner of Ste. CatherineSt. E. and Amherst St., every evening after 9. (Free admission for the after-show gatherings.)

Tabu is at Tohu, 2345 Jarry St. E., July 12 to 25. For complete program details for Montreal completement cirque, visit www.montrealcompletementcirque.com.Tickets are available at the various venues' doors two hours before the performance, at the main box office, 514-845-3524, or via Admission, 514-790-1245, www.admission.com.

kgreenaway@thegazette.canwest.com