Last year Montreal decided to celebrate that fact by inaugurating its first international circus festival: Montreal Complement Cirque. The city (which was already a mecca for summer festivals) exploded with performances by resident companies and troupes from around the globe.

The idea, wrote festival founder, Gaetan Morency, was that "Montreal will be abuzz with the multiple circus disciplines spread out all over the city. The originality of the programming will be on a par with the venues."

There were performances under the big top, such as Cirque du Soleil's kaleidoscope of color, clowns and acrobats, "Totem," and Cirque Eloise's dynamic homage to street culture, hip-hop and extreme sports, "Id."

Performances also took place in converted theaters and at the new multi-stage complex, La TOHU — a bold piece of city planning erected on a massive landfill known as the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex. Located several miles from the city center, the complex is home to the impressive multistory building that is the National Circus School (a wonderful place to tour) and the sprawling megalopolis that is the headquarters of Cirque du Soleil.

In addition to the ticketed performances, the festival presented a succession of free "happenings" along the city's picture-perfect waterfront, including one spectacular event where the artists and their acrobatic rigs arrived on a series of flat cars drawn by a loudly tooting locomotive.

A more static — though historically impressive — event was the exhibition presented at the Musee McCord, "Artisans du Reve," which featured galleries of festively clad mannequins decked out in costumes that represented a family album of Cirque du Soleil, from its inception to the present.

The principal goal of the festival was to demonstrate how the term "circus" has come to mean everything from traditional clowning to the hippest contemporary look, from circus as spectacle to circus as cabaret and close-encounter theater.

There were, of course, performances where the audience sat under the iconic big top. But there was another where people wandered freely around a vast arena as trapeze artists launched themselves into space above their heads. There was also a decadent Berlin-style cabaret performance where people sat at small tables and sipped cocktails as a woman hung suspended above the crowd sensuously wrapping and unwrapping herself in coils of heavy chain.

Shakespeare observed that "all the world's a stage, and that was certainly true last summer during Montreal Completment Cirque. It promises to be again this year when the festival returns to celebrate its second citywide celebration from July 7-24, featuring a vast array of circus companies from Canada, France, Australia, Ireland and Belgium.

Some of the acts that have been booked this summer include a reprise of Cirque du Soleil's latest big top-creation, "Totem." On a somewhat smaller scale, Tom Tom Crew from Australia will perform a show that combines the pulse of hip-hop with gravity-defying acts in a nightclub atmosphere. On the lighter side, Canada's Cirque Alfonse will explore what can happen when cabin fever overtakes a group of stir-crazy loggers in its comedy show, "Timber!"

Happess Theatre Vertical of France describes its show, "Mirror Mirror," this way: Wearing high heels, a black dress and a pearl necklace, trapeze artist and dancer Melissa Von Vepy interrogates her mirror - or rather a clever mirror apparatus mounted on a trapeze that swings along with the acrobat. With exceeding grace, she takes her shoe and breaks the glass. In a duo with her reflection, she begins her journey into the looking glass. What will she find on the other side?

Another company that stretches the traditional circus envelope is Quebec's The 7 Fingers. They will perform their latest creation, "Le Cabaret 2011," a show that in equal parts evokes the golden age of cabaret with a trip to a Chicago speakeasy during the era of Al Capone. In all, 17 different companies will participate in this year's festival, plus the wonderful free outdoor events.

If there ever was a city that gears up to enjoy summer, it's Montreal. The mood is festive and relaxed. Transportation is a snap, from the underground Metro to the popular new rent-a-bike stations, where visitors can pick up a bike, ride it and then drop it off at any other stand. And, of course, there's the food, possibly the best French cuisine this side of Paris. Montreal was already the perfect summer city destination, and now there are clowns.

WHEN YOU GO

For complete festival information and tickets: www.montrealcompletementcirque.com

For general information on visiting Montreal: www.tourisme-montreal.org

(Top 3 images courtesy of Jim Farber.  Totem performance image courtesy of Cirque du Soleil.)