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A “small” South Stukely business, Chaussures TUC, has been contracted to manufacture specially crafted acrobatic footwear that will be worn by professional performers at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games and according to business owner Nathalie Dugas, the venture has already attracted publicity of Olympic proportions. 
COURTESY: CHAUSSURES TUC Natalie Dugas, Michelle Brûlé and Marco Vary have been hard at work in preparation for the upcoming games.
“We’re so excited about this,” Dugas, who worked in the shoe department of Le Cirque du Soleil for five years, told The Record this week. “We’re just a small business, most of the shoe business has moved to China or Mexico, but since this has happened the phone has been ringing off the hook and we’re going to have to go into night-shift mode soon. We have to manufacture 20 to 25 pairs of shoes and we only have two weeks to do it. We’re going to have to expand in a week or two, again.”
TUC is manufacturing the acrobatic shoes that The 7 Fingers troupe will wear while performing each day during the Olympic Games.
This is not the first contract the business, which Dugas founded three and a half years ago, has signed to supply footwear for professional performers. Some of her customers include equestrian circus shows, Cavalia and Saka, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Alberta Ballet, Cirque du Soleil and Magog’s Cirque des étoiles. In addition, several independent artists of the acrobatics world are currently wearing her product around the globe.
The world-renowned artists of Montreal’s The 7 Fingers, founded in 2002 and presently in Russia as part of a world tour, have contracted Chaussures TUC’s expertise to produce the shoes necessary for their “hand-to-hand” duos. Hand-to-hand numbers are usually performed with bare hands and feet but, as they will be presented outside, in the cold, none could go barefoot.
Through a business relationship with a costume designer friend of hers, Dugas says the opportunity presented itself and she was the only person “crazy enough to take on the challenge”, but she also understands the importance of proper footwear in the acrobatic industry.
“We have to work wonders for these artists who have always trained and performed barefoot, some of them for over 10 years now. They are not used to feeling anything but the bare skin contact. Having to deliver on such a short notice, we start from ready-made dance shoes, which we will modify and adapt to the specific needs of each acrobat, depending on them being a porter or a flyer, and then colour them to match the costumes. Whether we create a shoe from scratch or modify a store-bought one makes no difference here as long as it is what the artist needs,” she says, adding that the exposure this relationship will command is much more appreciated than the money the contract will secure. “This is huge and it’s a little scary, but a good scary. It’s not so much about the money here. It’s about the exposure. None of us are acrobats. We’re not into sports but we will be at the Olympics. We will be representing the cultural side of Quebec. This is a huge accomplishment for this little business out here in South Stukely.”
Dugas credits her business partners; CLD (Centre local de Développement) of the Memphrémagog MRC via a Desjardins micro-credit funding and the Dobson-Lagassé Entrepreneurship Centre at Bishop’s University for their “incredible support”. The center has provided the support of a volunteer mentor, Rhett Lawson, training in accounting with R. André Nadeau, as well as CMA, who coordinates this program with the participation of Bishop’s University students, and training in organizational development with Isabelle Ducharme, for her small business’s continuous development.
Dugas concludes by saying that her small business had previously relied on word of mouth, but she says with the recent splash of “incredible” publicity she will have no alternative but to expand.By Jen Young
Special To The Record 2010-01-28 |
Montreal Canadiens
