MUSIC | DANCE | THEATRE AND PERFORMANCES
MUSIC
MAY 5
NOUBI TRIO
Friday, May 5, 7 pm
Noubi hails from Senegal, where his artistic journey began. He made the move to Montreal in 2016 and set about surrounding himself with stellar musicians: Caroline Planté on guitar, with her modern, flamenco vibe; Kayiri on violon, vocals and rap; and Hector Alvarado Pérez on bass.
Autrement
Inspired by traditional West African music, Noubli and his trio draw us into an eclectic universe of pop, reggae, funk and jazz.
JOYCE N’SANA
Friday, May 5, 9 pm
Joyce N’sana is a Congolese-born singer-songwriter. Named Radio-Canada’s Revelation for 2021-2022, her music is a tasteful blend of Afro-blues and hip hop.
Obosso
The title of her second EP, Obosso, means “going forward” in Lingala, one of the main languages spoken in her native Congo. N’sana grew up amid the Congolese wars, and in Obosso hers is an unambiguous and determined message of peace.
MAY 6
FLAVIA GARCIA
Saturday, May 6, 5:30 pm
A native of Argentina, Flavia Garcia is a teacher, translator, writer and singer in Québec, her home of more than 30 years. She holds a master In the teaching of French as a foreign language from McGill University. A first-generation immigrant, her love of the French language is what led her to settle down in Montréal.
Jalons du parcours migratoire : une vie en français au Québec
Flavia Garcia will be accompanied by pianist José Maria Gianelli and flautist Annie Thibault. The trio brings a contemporary touch to the traditional tango genre by infusing it with modern rhythms. Add socially engaged lyrics relating stories that can make one laugh or cry, and the result is musical fireworks and an original experience.
BON DÉBARRAS
Saturday, May 6, 8 pm
Bon Débarras unites the worlds of music and dance through a collaboration between Montreal artists Dominic Desrochers, Jean-François Dumas and Véronique Plasse. Over the years, Bon Débarras has moved into an entirely original repertoire steeped in poetry and rhythmic sounds, with unambiguous Quebec flavours. On guitar, banjo, violin and harmonica, the group carries an identity, a style and an energy-filled zest for life beautifully served by the versatility of the musicians as well as their daring jigging and vivid body percussion.
Repères
This show highlights the points of reference of the band’s creative process: identity-based, geographic, linguistic, cultural and, above all, human. Internal bearings, honed through encounters, travels and life experiences, that inform the band’s music and anchor it solidly within Québécois tradition, yet colour it with outside influences. References that offer refuge, and a kinetic energy that irresistibly beckons us to dance.
La Niña Kiwi
Saturday, May 6, 9:30 pm
DJ set
Niña Kiwi offers a mix of some 60 Latin and Brazilian songs to create a special vibe!
More details
MAY 12
NAGHMEH
Friday, May 12, 9 pm
Naghmeh is an Iranian-Canadian singer-songwriter. In the fall of 2022, she collaborated with a number of multidisciplinary artists to shine a light on the critical situation of the Iranian people. With guttural melodies, satirical lyrics and a dash of triumphant rock 'n' roll, Naghmeh delivers a message of love and justice.
Accompanied by Arthur John Pascau Smith on bass and Adrian Foster on synthesizers, Naghmeh gives a post-rock musical performance in Farsi, French and English.
OM.EL BEAT
Friday, May 12, 9 pm
OM.EL BEAT is Batoul Mohamad, an electronic music producer and DJ who uses sound to convey experiences. Drawing on several electronic genres, and chords of nostalgia found in the ambient sounds of life, she invites you to listen more attentively to the feeling within. She was born in Homs, Syria.
DJ set
MAY 13
ASAKA
Saturday, May 13, 7:30 pm
ASAKA is an Amazigh (Berber) band founded in 2015 by Djamal Sahnoune and three of his friends. The band’s stated mission is to build ties between Québec and Algeria.
Show: Maghrebian and modern Berber music
DJ ELLXANDRA
Saturday, May 13, 9 pm
Ellxandra is a vocalist, songwriter and producer from Cameroon. Originally self-orienting as a lead singer in various jazz and funk bands, she later drew inspiration from various artists around the city’s diverse underground scenes to begin experimenting with electronic sounds, her international background allowing her to blend genres, incorporating electronic dance grooves with soulful jazzy vocals.
DJ set
MAY 14
Chorale du Carrefour Solidarité Anjou
Sunday, May 14, 3:30 pm
Fondé en 1992, le Carrefour Solidarité Anjou (CSA) est un organisme communautaire charitable qui vient en aide aux personnes réfugiées dans leur démarche d'intégration.
DJ BRUN
Sunday, May 14, from 4 to 7 pm
Kevin Valcourt is a DJ and producer born In Port-au-Prince, Haiti to a Haitian father and a music-loving Guyanese mother. These roots shine through in his singular style, which blends electronica and traditional Haitian sounds.
DJ Brun will be accompanied by Maggy Flynn during his closing party, Sunday, May 14, from 4 to 7 pm.
DANCE
Reminiscencia
BY ARIANA PIRELA SÁNCHEZ & Camille Trudel-Vigeant
Saturday, May 6, 3 pm
Ariana Pirela Sánchez is a choreographer, dancer and teacher who holds a bachelor’s degree in Communication with a Major in Audiovisual Arts from Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas, Venezuela. She pursued her professional training at the École de danse de Québec. Her artistic process is imbued with a constant inner quest. She is interested in the mixture of forms to create an intimate dialogue between small and physical gestures, dance, music and theatre.
Reminiscence is the faculty that enables us to remember, to think, to recount past experiences. Reminiscencia explores the complexity of history and experience.
AU REVOIR ZÉBU
BY CLAUDIA CHAN TAK
Saturday, May 6, 4:30 pm
Claudia Chan Tak is a multidisciplinary artist trained in visual arts and contemporary dance. In recognition of her work and engagement, which promote cultural diversity and inclusive practices, the Conseil des arts de Montréal and the Prix de la danse de Montréal awarded her the prestigious Envol Award for 2022.
Au revoir zébu is a solo piece about grief, in two acts. “The first part is based on a dress that I worked on alone for a year, creating my own mourning, my own funeral ritual. This solo piece was born from a desire to accompany my grandmother towards death, then towards the world of ancestors by creating a dance inspired by the rituals of Madagascar, the country of my ancestors. The second part is based on a dress on which I worked for a year with the help of more than a hundred people with whom I shared a space of creation and discussion revolving around our grief and our goodbyes. This second dress is thus a collective one and carries the dreams and farewells of those I have met along the way. It also carries the strength and power of shared healing journeys. Au revoir zébu is the expression of my personal quest to better experience and understand my mourning, a long process that started four years ago.”
DERIVATIONS
BY AMPLE MAN DANSE
Saturday, May 6, 7 pm
Sunday, May 7, 7 pm
Saturday, May 13, 7 pm
Montreal-based urban poetic dance company Ample Man Danse creates and produces choreographic works steeped in the transformative power of human encounter.
Dérivations is an intimate moment of improvisation and dance composition between a passerby and a performer from Ample Man Danse, created in a public place from different stories of immigration and citizen actions from the podcast Cuisine ton quartier. During the performances, the dancer asks passersby to propose simple movements that can be integrated into the dance, and to choose the soundtrack to accompany the story. Dérivations is an ephemeral work, collective and spontaneous, where words drive the movement and the passerby inspires it. Each performance will be followed by a guided tour of the Cuisine ton quarter trail by some of the participants from the podcast.
THEATRE AND
PERFORMANCES
maY 6
nous vaincrons
BY Mazyar Shahcheraghi
Saturday, May 6, 2 pm
Sunday, May 7, 8 pm
Nous vaincrons is an artistic performance intended to raise the audience's awareness of the struggle of the Iranian people against the tyranny of the Islamic Republic's regime. Through their "Woman, Life, Liberty" revolution, Iranian women have established their leading role in this fight. With courage and determination, the women risk and sacrifice their lives for freedom in the face of violent repression. Each day is a new battle, and the resistance of these women takes the form of civil disobedience as expressed through their voices, their bodies and, above all, their hair, which dances freely in the wind.
MAY 7
Mystic tales from Ancient China
BY AURORE LIANG
Sunday, May 7, 4:30 pm
Born in Beijing, Aurore Liang is a trilingual storyteller specializing in traditional Chinese tales. Passionate about the Pingshu tradition, she has developed a dynamic, elegant style that combines the techniques of Chinese storytelling and Western theatre.
Enjoy a captivating immersive experience with talented storyteller Aurore Liang and musician Xiao Chen, a master of the guzheng, a Chinese instrument more than 2,500 years old. This show is the Chinese story of the creation of the world and humanity. You will understand the origin of the Spring Festival, a major celebration in many Asian countries.
BONNES BONNES
WITH SOPHIE GEE & Charo Foo Tai Wei
Sunday, May 7, 6 pm
Bonnes bonnes follows three friends in the evolution of their feelings about their Chinese identity: from shame to pride, to worry about China’s growing influence.
Sophie Gee
A graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada’s scenography program, Sophie enjoys collaborating with artists from outside the theatre scene and strives for ways to combine her love of text and story with the research processes of dance and contemporary art.
Charo Foo Tai Wei
Trained in Chinese classical dance, Charo Foo Tai Wei arrived in Quebec City in 2005, where she studied contemporary dance at the École de danse de Québec. From 2007 to 2013, she participated in Robert Lepage’s production Le Dragon bleu as an actor, dancer, and choreographer. She is fascinated by how the resonance of the nerve cells could trigger an organic movement which develops from inner body. Bonnes bonnes is her first theatre collaboration here in Montréal.
MAY 11
MES BANANES VERTES
BY CATHY FUOCO
Thursday, May 11, 7:30 pm
Cathy Fuoco is a seasoned theatrical and improv performer. She is an alumna of Cégep du Vieux Montréal’s theatre program and studied improvisation with Impro-Sierra. Since 2017, she has taught improvisation to high school students.
Cathy Fuoco’s One Woman Show Mes bananes vertes makes the audience run the gamut of emotions by recounting her experiences as a woman and covering the many roles that entails. She discusses her Italian roots, her motherhood and her divorce with humour and warmth.
MAY 13
Reconstitution des scènes marquantes de la révolution iranienne
BY collectif Femme, Vie, Liberté – Montréal
Saturday, May 13, 1 pm
In bringing together artists and members of the Iranian community for this unique experience, Montreal's Femme, Vie, Liberté collective wishes to symbolically relive certain events of the revolution. This performance showcases milestones in the revolution that have come to symbolize the resistance and the fight for freedom in Iran. It is presented in a symbolic, artistic manner so as not to offend people's sensibilities, particularly those of children.
HAMLET-DRIVER
BY EMMA GOMEZ
Saturday, May 13, 3 pm
Emma Gomez studied acting with John Strasberg and at Barcelona’s Institut del Teatre. She has played leading roles, including in plays by Schiller, Tennessee Williams, Bernard-Marie Koltès and Dea Loher. Her belief that an actor’s performance plays a pivotal role in shaping the theatrical idiom brought her to Montreal to devote herself to research.
Hamlet-driver aspires to be a piece of multidisciplinary performance theatre that probes the relationship between the actor and the character. The project is part of a research initiative on subjectivity as a new tool for the actor, and explores the line between reality and fiction.
with you
BY Annie Roy – ATSA
Saturday, May 13, 4 pm
In this one-hour session, Annie Roy will mediate conversations that arise out of the discovery of unusual objects pulled from a lunch box. It is a relational mechanism in the public space that invites passersby to participate – in pairs, trios or foursomes – in spontaneous conversations revolving around the theme of remembrance.
MAY 14
Voyagez en rythme et en cuisine :
une invitation signée Rhodnie Désir, avec Chef Paul et DJ Sugarface
Sunday, May 14, 1:30 pm
Rhodnie Désir graduated in communications and marketing from the Université de Montréal and from HEC Montréal. In 2017, she founded a dance company, RD Créations. In 2022, she received the “Danseuse de l’année” award at the Gala Dynastie and became the very first Associate Artist of Montreal’s illustrious Place des Arts for a three-year pilot project. In the fall of 2022, she was honored by the Dance Collection Danse (DCD) Hall of Fame with the Sandra Faire Next Generation Award.
