Biennale Montreal 2016 Open

Le Grand Balcon
Montreal's Biennale 2016 Now Open

October 19, 2016 - January  15, 2017

Le Grand Balcon was conceptualized and curated by Philippe Pirotte.
This intense and multifaceted artistic event comprises of the following:

55 artists and artistic collective groups,
25 Canadian artists 8 of which are from Quebec, 
35 new original works,
23 countries (Belgium, Cameroon, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Iran, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States),
22 exhibition and program venues and local collaborations,
10 international coproductions,
4 publications

The main exhibition area is at the Montreal's Museum of Contemporary Art -MAC. However, during the opening days and until Sunday October 30, 2016 many more artistic happenings and performances are taking place. Please consult the Biennale Montreal 2016 website for all the events and schedules.

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For more information, visit the La Biennale de Montréal website. 

You can read more about the Biennale Montreal 2016 in my previous article here.

Constellations

Centaur Theatre /48th Season

October 6 - 30, 2016

Play written by Nick Payne

Directed by Peter Hinton 

Centaur Theatre opens its 48th season with Constellations, the winner of the London’s Evening Standard Best Play Award. It is a tale of two people finding love in a theoretical quantum-physics multi-universes. The play made waves on both sides of the Atlantic: in London’s West End (2012), and on Broadway (2015). It was written by the British playwrite Nick Paine, and it is directed by the accomplished Canadian director Peter Hinton, the former Artistic Director of the NAC English Theatre and recent META nominee.

The main female character Maranne, a quantum physicist, formulates clearly the main premisses on which the play is based:

Marianne: In the quantum multiverse, every choice, every decision you’ve ever and never made exists in an unimaginably vast ensemble of parallel universes.

If you accept the theory of the multiverses, then you will be greatly amused with the variations and permutations of the characters' fragmented experiences and their reactions to them. You will see the physicist Marianne and the bee keeper Roland going on a journey through parallel worlds where they fall in, and sometimes out of love over and over again in a multitude of ways. Every choice creates a different, life-altering outcome in their relationship. 

Bit even if you do not believe in the theoretical multiverses, you will be amazed to discover what a myriad of possibilities each relationship presents, and how the variations on the way people choose to react to the reality or how they select to express their free will alter the outcome of their relationship and create different life scenarios. The play is a multifaceted, kaleidoscopic succession of episodes on how the same loving relationship could play out under different circumstances, or how it could be altered because of the personal choices the characters decide to make.

Whatever are your believes, keep in mind that the theory of multiverses is only a Quantum Mechanics theory, not a law like the Newton's Laws of Thermodynamics. Those theories have not yet been proven to become the physic's laws. Almost all theories are either significantly elaborated upon, changed, or totally discarded later on in the future.

Also consider what the spiritual mystics had claimed throughout the ages that multiverses do exist but are in the spiritual realms, and that we are all spiritual beings in control of our choices that are defined or even limited by the physical reality in which we exist. 

It is also interesting to note that in all 5 or 6 multiverses portrayed in the play, Marianne, regardless of her proclamations of infinite possibilities and outcomes in the different physical universes in which she firmly believes she simultaneously exists, develops brain tumour, and only in one of them it is benign. In all the other ones, it is the same type of spread-out multiple brain tumour from which the father of the playwrite Nick Payne died, and which is also going to lead to Marianne's death. Somehow, this does not appear to support too well the Marrianne's proclamations of the multiple possibilities with the multiple outcomes in the hypothetical multiverses. Even benign brain tumours continues to grow, are very difficult to operate, and eventually lead to death, though in a slower scenario than the cancerous ones.

There are only two actors on the stage with a cellist in the background who helps with the tonal accents to separate the fragmented episodes from different universes from each other, delineating the beginning and the end of each successive experience. The play is 85 minutes long without an intermission.  

Nick Payne wrote Constellations in the aftermath of his father’s death, after watching Brian Greene’s documentary The Elegant Universe, an exploration of the quantum mechanics theory which postulates the existence of eleven space-time dimensions. He described Constellations as a dramatized attempt to reconcile “the urge to remember versus the need to forget”.

Peter Hinton, the play's director, elaborated:

"Constellations is a play in which this science is explored through the varied possible lives of a single couple. As we follow Roland and Marianne through breaking up and staying together, moving in and going their separate ways, having affairs and monogamy, we also see romance interrupted and tested by death; it is a love story both celebrated and mourned.”

The Centaur Theatre’s Artistic and Executive Director Roy Surette stated this about the play:

“Constellations is the poster play for our “Swept Away” season slogan, transporting audiences from the world we know to multiple universes where this ordinary couple’s awkward, humorous and ultimately touching relationship develops in countless directions. We are proud to introduce this simple yet beautiful story to English Canada for the first time with our partners, Canadian Stage, and are so fortunate to have Peter direct. What a perfect artistic match in any universe! His vision is always innovative and surprising; and he’s put together a celestial group of artists." 

Graham Cuthbertson returns to Centaur as Roland, a somewhat awkward bee-keeper.

Cara Ricketts, a Toronto actress, makes her Centaur debut as a studious quantum physicist, Marianne. Cara’s previous credits include work with Soulpepper Theatre and several Stratford Festival seasons. She is also known for her role as Bertilda in the popular TV series, Book of Negroes.

Michael Gianfrancesco, who has designed for theatre, opera and dance across the country, as well as for both the Shaw and Stratford Festivals, created the sets and costumes. Andrea Lundy, a 9-time Dora Award-winner and 28-year theatre veteran, brought her considerable experience to the production’s lighting design. Centaur’s Audio Engineer, Peter Cerone, who has been designing for dance, theatre, art installations and more since 1980, contributed the sound design. Michael Hart, another Stratford alumnus who has worked with Peter Hinton several times, is the stage manager, assisted by Jacynthe Lalonde. Stephanie Costa assisted Mr. Hinton and Montreal performer, recording artist and teacher, Jane Chan, plays the cello live. 

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Production Team:

Actors Graham Cuthbertson and Cara Ricketts
Cellist Jane Chan
Set & Costume Designer Michael Gianfrancesco 
Lighting Designer Andrea Lundy
Sound Designer Peter Cerone
Fight Director Jean-François Gagnon
Stage Manager Michael Hart
Assistant Stage Manager Jacynthe Lalonde
Assistant to the Director Stephanie Costa

CHAT UP, IN COLLABORATION WITH MONTREAL GAZETTE:
Sunday October 9th at 12:30pm.
Free coffee and biscotti offered by Season Sponsor Bonaparte Restaurant.
Admission is FREE!

TALK BACKS:
Get behind the scenes with Constellations’ two actors after the evening performance on Thursday Oct. 13th and after the matinée on Sunday Oct. 16th.

For more information, visit the Centaur Theatre website.

1700 La Poste - Claire Labonté

Claire Labonté
at 1700 La Poste

October 7 - December 18, 2016

Claire Labonté is a self-taught artist. Initially, her paintings which deployed minutely executed motifs across large surfaces were classified as naive art. However, over the years, her art evolved into an orchestrated complex imagery with a striking autopoiesis. As she explained herself, her paintings happen in the space after she dips her brush in a paint and before she makes the mark on the canvas. It is during this meditative instant where her works take shape and the imagery is conceived. Her imagery expresses her personal type of visual poetics, her unconscious sense of aesthetics, and not only her own but also the collective mythology that surrounds her. In addition, the colours she deploys are striking and vibrant, and project the sense of great energy and vitality. The colours play the major role in the propagation of her repetitive motives and painterly spots into a complex visual symphony of balance, harmony and meaning.

Her notion of a painting “making itself” reveal two involuntary constants in her art: the repetitive nature of her artistic process and the mythological dimension of the resulting works. In 2003, after twenty years of personal exploration and in-depth searching, she enrolled at a university to investigate the enigmatic mechanic-like and the unconscious nature of her work. She obtained the Bachelor of Philosophy and the Master of Fine Arts degrees, and came to view her repetitive creative process as being at the root of the mythological dimension of her artwork. In 2011, after completing a thesis on the mythical and ritualistic aspects of her paintings, she focused her pictorial research on the concepts of repetition and replication.

In 2013, in an effort to resist the mytho-narrative imagery that automatically introduced itself through the repetition or replication of her small touches of paint, Labonté created L’esthétique des contraintes à l’Orée des bois -The Aesthetic of Constraints at the Woods’ Edge (see the top-most image). With this work, she came to discover that the circumstances involved in the application of a touch of paint not only accounted for the mythical nature of her own paintings, but were fundamental to creative activity as such.

Claire Labonté's pairings could be easily discussed in conjunction with the Alfred Pellan's art who used extensively the repetitive elements and themes in his later works. This type of repetitive-imagery depiction, the complex visual rhythms that are conceived and portrayed, might even represent an artistic approach specific to some Quebec artists, and might stem from the Quebec's collective mythology.

Claire Labonté has participated in international exhibitions in Switzerland and France, including the fourth Biennale internationale d’art hors les normes in Lyon. She is the recipient of awards and grants from Switzerland, Québec, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Her murals have been integrated into the architecture of a number of public buildings.

Since 2008, Claire Labonté has exhibited primarily in Québec museums that have the necessary space to display her large and at times almost endlessly wide works that are perceived as being “murals.” 

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Watch the video about the Claire Labonté's exhibition at 1700 La Poste here.

1700 La Poste is a private space dedicated to visual arts. It presents events in the form of exhibitions and lectures. It is housed in a former Postal Station F, built in 1913, that was originally conceived by the architect David Jerome Spence. It is located in Montreal's Griffintown, 1700 Rue Notre-Dame West. The building was fully restored a century later, thanks to private financing from Isabelle de Mévius, and the vision of the architect Luc Laporte.

For more information, visit the 1700 La Poste website.
The admission to the exhibition if free of charge.

A Man of Dance - Vincent Warren

 A MAN OF DANCE / Un Homme de Danse 

by Marie Brodeur

Canada, Quebec /  2016 / 83 minutes

Selected for the Festival de cinéma de la ville de Québec (FCVQ)

Premièred at the International Festival of Films on Art - FIFA 2016

FIFA 2016 winner of the Best Canadian Film Award

A MAN OF DANCE (Un Homme de Danse) is a documentary feature about the life and times of dancer, curator and historian Vincent Warren. He was the bright shining star of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, the male principle dancer who contributed to this ballet's company to succeeded in acquiring, in a rather short time, the worldwide recognition and great reputation.

The film documents "la belle epoque" of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and its beginnings with the founder Madame Ludmilla Chiriaeff. It shows extracts from its major performances and focuses on the public's interest they steered. But most importantly, the film highlights the life and the creative, artistic career, as well as the major contribution of the company's lead dancer Vincent Warren. That period of Les Grandes Ballets' youth and blossoming is revealed through Vincent Warren's on screen recollections and reminiscences, as well as the vast documentation and a number of video clips, many of which came from Vincent Warren's memorabilia collection and his personal, very unique, and the largest dance related library.

The film presents a remarkable man and his achievements, and also focuses on his vast interactions with the artistic milieu of his days, as well as his great love of the dance and his respect and consideration for his dancing partners and colleagues. It is an inspiring film that also helps to reconnect Montrealers to their recent cultural past.

Official Synopsis:

"From Igor Stravinsky to Norman McLaren to Frank O’Hara, Vincent Warren has touched hands with history. This American-born star dancer of Montreal’s Les Grands Ballets Canadiens has always been inhabited by the importance of dance, art and culture in society and has worked his whole life as the bearer of beauty. From his début at the Old Metropolitan Opera and throughout his career, he established a reputation as a formidable dancer, historian and curator. The recipient of several awards including the Order of Canada, Vincent Warren has, to a certain extent, incarnated great social and artistic trends both in Canada and in the United States. A MAN OF DANCE is the story of this living legend and his historical era." 

About the filmmaker

Marie Brodeur comes from the visual arts, dance and theater. She studied with a number of renowned visual and theatrical artists such as Irene Whittome, Gilles Maheu, Linda Rabbin, Martine Epoque, Jean Asselin, Merce Cunningham and Jean-Pierre Perrault. Following a brilliant 10-year dance career in modern ballet in Canada, the United States and Europe, Marie Brodeur took on a new career in 1986 as a documentary filmmaker, specializing mostly in art and dance. She was honored with two UNESCO prizes, recognizing her films (Danse du guerrier, La danse en Asie : la magie en mouvement) for their “exceptional contribution to the conservation of our world cultural heritage.” Many of her films are now part of the permanent collections of esteemed institutions such as the Lincoln Centre Performing Arts Library in New York, the Cinémathèque de Paris and the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art.

A MAN OF DANCE

Director: Marie Brodeur

With: Vincent Warren and the participation of Annette av Paul, Arnab Bandyopadhyay, Anik Bissonnette, Peter Boneham, Jean-Sébastien Couture, Paul-André Fortier, Linde Howe-Beck, Chris Huizinga, Véronique Landory, Marie-Josée Lecours, Brian Macdonald, Mamata Niyogi-Nakra, Gaétan Patenaude, Aileen Passloff and Jeanne Renaud.

Cinematography: Sylvestre Guidi, Marie Brodeur

Editing: Michel Giroux

Online editing: Denis Pilon (ACIC)

Original Music Score: Thomas Alain Thériault

Sound: Louis Léger, Alain Thériault, Jean Laurence Thériault

Sound Design: Catherine Van Der Donckt 

Sound Mix: Bruno Bélanger (PRIM)

Producers: Alain Thériault, Marie Brodeur

Executive Producer: TAP Film Inc.

Production: La Compagnie de la Marie

Distribution: SPIRA

Official Site: comarie.ca/fr/un-homme-de- danse

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/ Unhommededanse

Trailer: vimeo.com/180075436

In Theatres on September 30

A MAN OF DANCE will then open in Quebec theatres on September 30, in French at Cinémathèque québécoise (Montreal) and Cinéma Le Clap (Quebec), and in English at Cinéma du Parc (Montreal). The film will also be screened in theatres throughout the province this autumn.

World Press Photo 16: Montreal 2016

Montreal World Press Photo 16
August 31 - October 2, 2016

This is the Montréal's 11th edition of World Press Photo, with 150 winning images, as well as four complementary exhibits. It is held at Bonsecours Market in Old Montréal. 

Often compared to the Oscars of photography, the World Press Photo is the most prestigious annual competition of professional photography in the world. Gathered in Amsterdam in February, jury members awarded the first prizes to 41 photographers from 21 countries out of 83 000 submitted images from 5,775 photo journalists across 128 countries.

This emblematic exhibition that has kicked off Montréal’s cultural season, proposes a series of images depicting major events of the year, covered in eight categories. Themes such as the Paris attacks, the earthquake in Nepal, the refugee crisis and tensions in the Middle East are showcased amongst the photographs selected by a jury of 18 international professionals.

“The Montréal edition is one of the most popular amongst the hundred resented around the world”, stated Matthieu Rytz, president of the event. “Our privileged relationship with our visitors speaks volumes about the Montréal community’s curiosity and level of involvement in the evolution of our societies. It also demonstrates the relevance of presenting such a high quality window on the world”.

World Press Photo of the Year: Hope for a New Life

(Poto just below.)

The photo of the year has been awarded to Australian photographer Warren Richardson. Entitled Hope for a New Life, the winning photo in black and white depicts a man handing a baby through a razor wire barrier, crossing the border from Serbia into Hungary. 

Founded in 1955, World Press Photo is a non-profit organization with headquarters in Amsterdam. The foundation is committed to developing and encouraging the highest standards in photo journalism and documentaries worldwide. In the course of the year, the exhibition travels around a hundred cities in over 45 countries. World Press Photo benefits from the support of the Dutch Postcode Lottery and is sponsored worldwide by Canon.

After Montréal, the exhibition will be presented in Toronto, October 4 - 25, 2016, (Brookfield Place, Allen Lambert Galleria). Then it will travel back to the Province of Quebec, to be shown at the Chicoutimi Pulperie Regional Museum, November 3 - 27, 2016.

For more information, consult Montreal's World Press Photo 16 website here.

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The top most photo by Nadia Slejskova.

All other photos courtesy of World Press Photo.

Description of World Press Photos (from top to bottom):

Nature, 2nd prize stories – photo 2

© Brent Stirton, South Africa, Getty Images for National Geographic

Title: Ivory Wars 

November 17, 2014. Michael Oryem (29) poached elephant with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), operating mainly in the Garamba National Park in DRC. He says he was asked by LRA leader Joseph Kony to take ivory to him in Darfur, Sudan, and that the LRA trades the ivory to the Sudanese Army. Oryem defected from the LRA and helped take Ugandan forces through the border into the Central African Republic to retrieve a stash of ivory he had previously hidden. He is carrying two of the six tusks he hid.

General News, 3rd prize stories

© Daniel Berehulak, Australia, for The New York Times

Title: An Earthquake's Aftermath, Nepal

Nepalese villages watch a helicopter picking up a medical team, dropping aid at the edge of a makeshift landing zone in Gumda, Nepal, 09 May 2015.

Daily Life, 1st prize singles

 © Kevin Frayer, Canada, Getty Images

 Title: China's Coal Addiction

Chinese men pull a tricycle in a neighborhood next to a coal-fired power plant in Shanxi, China, on 26 November 2015. A history of heavy dependence on burning coal for energy has made China the source of nearly a third of the world's total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the toxic pollutants widely cited by scientists and environmentalists as the primary cause of global warming.

General News, 1st prize stories

© Sergey Ponomarev, Russia, for The New York Times

Title: Reporting Europe's Refugee Crisis

Refugees arrive by boat near the village of Skala on Lesbos, Greece, 16 November 2015.

World Press Photo of the Year

© Warren Richardson, Australia

Title: Hope for a New Life, Serbia/Hungary border

August 28, 2015. A baby is handed through a hole in a razor wire barrier, to a Syrian refugee who has already managed to cross the border from Serbia into Hungary, near Röszke. Hungary was hardening its stance towards refugees attempting to enter the country. In July, Hungary began construction on a four-meter-high barrier fence along the entire length of the frontier with Serbia, to close off border crossings through all but official routes. Refugees attempted to find ways through before the fence was completed on 14 September. This group had spent four hours hiding in an apple orchard at night, dodging border police, being gassed with pepper spray, and trying to find a way across.

Nature, 1st prize singles

 © Rohan Kelly, Australia, Daily Telegraph  

 Title: Storm Front on Bondi Beach

November 6, 2015. A massive shelf cloud moves towards Bondi Beach.The cloud was part of a weather front that brought violent thunderstorms, with local media reporting damaging winds, hailstones the size of golf balls, and heavy rainfall. Shelf clouds are low cloud banks often with smooth or layered surfaces, and black, turbulent bases.

Nature, 1st prize stories – photo 3

 © Tim Laman, USA

Tough Times for Orangutans

June 13, 2014. Orphan baby orangutans get a ride from their night cages to a patch of forest where they can play for a day, at the International Animal Rescue facility in Ketapang.

Sports, 3rd prize singles

 © Jonas Lindkvist, Sweden, for Dagens Nyheter

 Title: Neptun Synchro

 December 13, 2015. Members of Neptun swimming club’s synchronized swimming section perform in  sailboat position, during pre-Christmas Lucia festivities.Synchronized swimming demands advanced water  skills and requires strength, flexibility and breath control, as well as artistry and precise timing. Neptun has  nearly 100 members who participate in synchronized swimming, ranging from four to 65 years old.

Nature, 3rd prize stories – photo 3

 © Christian Ziegler, Germany, for National Geographic 

Title: Chameleon Under Pressure

 November 28, 2014. A dominant male of a rare turquoise form of panther chameleon displays its colors.