By Michelle Winner

Cirque du Soleil’s Totem Soars High in the Kitchen with Mia Messier By Michelle Winner

Mia left music after several years to up with Mia in Portland, Oregon attend Quebec Tourism Institute, recently and sat down for lunch focusing on food and catering and an interview in the heart of management. For 10 years, Mia TOTEM’s little gypsy village, worked catering movie sets, cooking the food trailer “dining room,” in bistros, hotels and private surrounded by many of the show’s kitchens and opened her own star athletes and performers. pizzeria in Montreal. LBM: With a traveling show of Forward to 2003 and Mia was over 120 people including support looking for a new environment. staff, spouses and children of artists Cirque Du Soleil’s traveling shows from 21 different countries speaking hire local cooks at each city on the 11 languages, what special tour. At the Montreal tour stop of considerations, be they diet, the big-top production Dralion, Mia religious preferences or performance accepted a temporary position as a fuel do you provide via your menu? cook. The work suited her. At the Mia: Yes of course, we try to balance end of her contract, Mia joined the the menu for the artist. tour as a full-time chef for seven We have to be open to all cultures. months. Fast forward seven years The menu is also based on availability and Mia was still traveling with from suppliers. We try to make this What fuels those high-fliers and Dralion as a cook. Five continents more homey as we travel all over the ethereal acrobats of Cirque Du later, she was offered the Kitchen world. Sometimes they (the artists) Soliel’s TOTEM traveling show? A Manager position on tour, moving her will ask if I can prepare something varied menu and mostly Mia Messier. full circle to take advantage special from their culture. I try to do of her culinary training and catering that. I also get inspiration from At TOTEM a traveling show of Cirque management experience. She restaurant meals on my time off in Du Soleil, this part chef, part manages employees, budgets, each city, cookbooks and magazines. caterer, part business manager Mia plans schedules and sources local Messier is the Kitchen Manager. suppliers in each city the tour visits. LBM: What is the most requested She does cook once in a while, in a food item? Mia, a creative culinary phenom, way still fulfilling her need for Mia: Here it is so diverse we just was born in Cambodia and grew artistic creativity. go with what we have. But I have up in Montreal. An affinity for the been told it’s the Pho and General musical arts led her to Vincent Since 2010, Mia has been Kitchen Tao Chicken. D’Indy Musical Institute of Montreal, Manager of the current show where she studied violin and piano. TOTEM. Luxe Beat magazine caught LBM: When you get to go home to

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Quebec a couple times a year, what is your favorite food? Mia: My mom’s Quebec food, comfort food; Mac and Cheese, Shepherd’s Pie.

LBM: What are you passionate about? Mia: Oh my God, my work is my passion. I meet people around the world, different nationalities, cultures, personalities.

LBM: What do you like about life on the road? Mia: That my work is always well done.

LBM: What is difficult on the road? Mia: We lose some friends, as people quit the tour from time to time. But I make more friends, I keep them all close. Thank God for technology.

LBM: When you move the show to the next venue, how does your job work? Mia: The entire show moves; we pack up our entire little village and only asphalt is left. I will arrive one day before we transfer. I will set up the barbecue because there will be nothing there. If we have to, I have the food catered for a couple of days. We have a schedule and we have all the suppliers in each city. As soon as the kitchen is set up, deliveries are made and we begin. It is all on schedule. Cirque Du Soleil has been doing this for thirty years. I have been doing this for eleven. It is all about the schedule.

LBM: What are the five qualities that make you perfect for this job? Mia: I have passion. I can multi- task. I keep an open mind. I have management skills; time, personalities, budgets. And trust, if your co-workers trust you, it makes your job easy.

LBM: It seems that your life here with TOTEM is good... Mia: Yes, my life is a touring show and I so enjoy it. Life on the road is so different that when I return home to visit I have culture shock. Besides that, when I visit each city, I see old friends and I think, “My life is complete.” We are putting on the best show possible, one, two sometimes three times a day. There are challenges and we work very hard; the artists have to go to work and everyone knows what they have to do. I love it and can do it for another ten years, but if I ever come to work one day and I am not happy, I won’t do it (anymore). Happiness is the key.