Faon Bélanger

Faon Bélanger is a documented aerial artist from Cirque du Soleil's formative era, appearing across live circus, television and film productions in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The earliest established professional credit places Bélanger in *La magie continue*, Cirque du Soleil's 1986 production, as confirmed by the production's cast record in the CBC/Radio-Canada distribution archive. In 1987, Bélanger also received a cast credit in the Canadian family film *The Great Land of Small*, directed by Vojtěch Jasný, though the available record identifies only the performer's name without character or act detail.

Bélanger's most substantial documented context comes from *Nouvelle Expérience*, the Cirque du Soleil production presented across 1990–1991. The artist ensemble was directed by Franco Dragone, with choreography by Debra Brown, creative direction by Gilles Ste-Croix, original score by René Dupéré, set design by Michel Crête and costumes by Dominique Lemieux. Bélanger's name appears in the cast records for both the live production and the 1991 filmed special produced by Les Productions Telemagik in participation with HBO, CBC and Radio-Canada.

In 1992, Bélanger graduated from Montréal's École nationale de cirque, where the alumni register lists the performer's discipline as aerial artist. That institutional record marks the end of the established professional chronology. The sparse but verifiable trail—from Cirque du Soleil's early touring productions through broadcast documentation to formal aerial training—places Bélanger within a crucial moment when Canadian contemporary circus was circulating between live performance, television preservation and structured education.