André Pérusse, manager, co-director, then director of street arts programming at the Just for Laughs Festival for 15 years, died on Saturday from cancer. He was 72 years old.
Before giving 20 years of his life to the Just for Laughs Festival, André Pérusse was a dancer, then a publicist with his public relations company specializing in performing arts in Montreal.
In the 1990s, his reputation in the cultural world was such that a certain René Angélil called on his services (along with Mia Dumont and Dick Walsh) to take care of the creative and formal aspects of his marriage to the singer Celine Dion, in 1994.
From his dance training, André Pérusse had acquired a sense of rigor, discipline and perfection. Those close to him nicknamed him “finest quality”, because he was always dressed to the nines. He embodied elegance in person and never left anything to chance. An esthete, Pérusse shared the philosophy of Jean Cocteau in his vision of art and beauty.
“André was a visionary, a creator, one of the greatest event organizers in Montreal. A man of taste, a man of heart, a man of modernity, André leaves all those who knew him with memories filled with humor and kindness,” wrote his family and his partner Raymond Beaunoyer in his obituary published on Sunday. .
