Art Souterrain 2019

Steve Giasson, Rubis

ART SOUTERRAIN 2019
11th Edition - True or False

March 2 - 24, 2018

Art Souterrain or UnderGround Art is an annual event in right at the downtown of Montreal  It rans for 3 winter weeks and is presented inside the over 6 km long Montreal’s underground pedestrian network and 8 satellite locations. Works of art were chosen by curators Maude Arsenault, Martin Le Chevallier and Joyce Yahouda will be accessible at all times, free of charge. The Festival will also present a number of interesting mediation and discovery activities. 

Contemporary works by 60 well-known local and international artists evoking aspects of the “True or False” theme will enliven the heart of Montreal.

Justin Langlois

Among the ARTISTS:

The Frenchman Alain della Negra and the Japanese artist Kaori Kinoshita will sow the confusion between the real and the virtual by presenting their short film NEIGHBORHOOD, story of the life of their avatar with the followers of the game of Sims.

THE BEST AVAILABLE EVIDENCE by visual artist Rebecca Marino is inspired by a document the artist discovered on the evidence of the existence and legitimacy of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The work challenges personal belief boundaries by playing with the idea of ​​evidence.

At the Palais des Congrès, Philippe Ramette will use photography to bring humour and strangeness into the world while reflecting on the notion of "irrational".

Holly Andres offers a series of photographic snapshots inspired by childhood memories, carefully staged as a cinematic melodramas. Her work echoes works of Siàn Davey who celebrated family life in its unpredictable complexity with an almost documentary approach.

The self-taught Quebec artist Emmanuel Laflamme, former cartoonist, in his work FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT multiplies the references to the first step of the man on the Moon while questioning the authenticity of the event.

The conceptual artist Steve Giasson questions our beliefs with his work WITHOUT TITLE (CINQ RUBIS ). He claims he has hidden five rubies in the buildings along the underground route, raising a question about the very existence of his work.

Marc Lee takes a critical look at the limits of our information society with his video installation POLITICAL CAMPAIGN - BATTLE OF OPINION ON SOCIAL MEDIA. From his premise that the social media reflects our own opinion, he mixes real images, videos and tweets in real time to create a continuous newsletter  

Artist Philippe Battikha presents a well-known Montreal issue: construction sites. His sculptural and sound installation PREVENTATIVE INTERVIEW plays with the spectator who will doubt his perceptions.

A monumental installation THE TERRIL by Edward Hillel, uses humour to denounce the economic, political and social powers of multinational corporations.

The Montreal artist Dominique Pétrin examines in his work THE TRUE OF FALSE how by using hypnosis in his performances he can distort the visual cognitive processes and alter the perception and consciousness. 

Brendan George Ko, Head In The Sand

Brendan George Ko, Lava Tube

New and free activities:

"Running pace" will allow the public to combine physical training and discovery of the Montreal's underground course with a sports coach and mediators.

Guided tours: will offer three thematic tours to allow festival-goers to understand underground works from different angles.

During the Nuit Blanche, each artist present at the lounch will be accompanied by mediators whose mission will be to inform the public about the artist's work and his career

Mediation sessions will be organized on weekends, and middays on weekdays to discuss the works in the underground route.

Films: Cinéma paranoïaque at Cinéma du Parc.

Also, the satellite locations will have each special planned activities: meetings with the artists, creative workshops or round table.

Jean-François Lachance

Jean-François Lachance

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Programming, activities: www.artsouterrain.com

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The Last Wife

Centaur Theatre / 50th Season

THE LAST WIFE

Quebec Premiere

February 12 - March 3, 2019

Written by Kate Henning, The Last Wife is a historical drama presented within a contemporary setting and with present-day vocabulary. Though the play is about the King Henry VIII's sixth and the last wife Katherine Parr, it equally well portrays Henry VIII himself, his three children Edward, Mary and Elizabeth (who will all in turn become English monarchs), and Thomas Seymore, a brother of Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII.

The play takes the audiences behind the throne into a home not unlike that of any power family today. Almost 500 years ago, Katherine Parr manoeuvred her way through the halls of power and earned the respect and trust of her husband, King Henry VIII. Though history shows that a wedding with the notorious King proved fatal to several of his wives, but in last wife Katherine Pratt he met his match in wit and negotiation, and gained a formidable ally worthy of ruling the country while he fought in France. Moreover, she had prepared his heirs - Edward, Mary and Elizabeth - to rule the British empire. The Last Wife is a smart, funny and potent examination of patriarchy, family, sexual politics, and, surprisingly, even women’s rights.

The playwright Kate Hennig explained her attraction to Katherine Parr:

 “After watching the events of the Arab Spring on the news in 2011, I became curious about the wives and daughters of tyrants. That led me to Henry VIII, which led me to Katherine Parr. The Last Wife is an ‘imagined’ history based on actual people and events. What I was deeply interested in was the humanity of these iconic characters, imagining what made them do what they did, thereby shaping history. Creating a contemporary voice for this history allows us to see ourselves and our own personal and political struggles. It also raises questions such as do women see power, specifically political power, as a position from which things get done or is the teaching of children--an archetypically feminine domain--a more powerful platform for change than seeking political office?”

 The play’s director Eda Holmes stated:

“The uncanny political timeliness and social relevance render The Last Wife popular both here and in the US. It’s full of sexy characters and life and death stakes--pillars of great theatre--but what emerges as the thrilling core of the story are Katherine Parr’s gutsy intelligence and resilient pragmatism. Kate [Hennig] has unleashed a modern woman into history, giving us a new prism through which to view power, patriarchy and feminism. In fact, she has done the very thing that historian and women's rights campaigner, Dame Mary Beard, proposes: she has redefined the structures of power.” 

The play brings the nearly 500 years old historical events to life with great mastery. All the actors shine in their roles, especially Diana Donnelly who portrays the lead character Katherine Pratt, the last wife of Henry VIII. She succeeds in enacting the complex drama of Katherine Pratt’s life, who succeeded in navigating the tough corners of her relationship with her unpredictable husband King Henry VIII, at the same time being a devoted and dedicated stepmother to his three children.

Even in the case you are not much familiar with this particular period of English history, the play will still hold your attention. It might even make you search later on at home in your books or online for the historical accounts of those times. 

PRODUCTION TEAM

• Written by Kate Hennig
• Directed by Eda Holmes
• With Diana Donnelly, Robert Persichini,  Antoine Yared, Mikaela Davies, Anne-Marie Sahen and  Alessandro Gabrielli.
• Set & Costume Designer Michael Gianfrancesco
• Lighting Designer Andrea Lundy
• Music Composers Anna Atkinson and Alexander MacSween
• Fight Director Anita Nittoly
• Assistant Director Jessica Abdallah
• Assistant Set & Costume Designer Zoe Roux
• Coach to Mr. Gabrielli Jonathan Patterson
• Stage Manager Melanie St-Jacques
• Assistant Stage Manager Danielle Skene

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For more information, visit the Centaur Theatre website.

PAC 2019: Into the Wonder Room

INTO THE WONDER ROOM
February 13, 2019 - January 5, 2020

Montreal’s Pointe-à-Callière (PAC) Museum of Archaeology and History presents a new exhibition Into the Wonder Room that features the mysterious and quite unique world of cabinets of curiosities. It showcases over 1,000 rare, exotic and quite unusual objects. The impressive installations take visitors on a journey around the world, as a homage to the beauty and strangeness found in it. The exhibition brings together objects from the collections of the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, France, as well as hundreds of items from the collections of several museums in Québec and Canada, as well as from private collectors.

Curiosity cabinets historically represented and still represent the passion of individuals to collect certain items, displaying them in their homes as both decorative or museum type of pieces. Presently, if collecting rare items, some collectors keep them in secure safes or storages spaces. Collectors often have individual preferences as to the items they chose to collect, determined by their personal hobbies, travels, or scientific interests.

The PAC Museum exhibition offers visitors an opportunity to explore curiosities from other times and places. It presents the history of cabinets of curiosities, or “wonder rooms”, down through the ages, from the homes of European aristocrats, great explorers, and scholars in past centuries.

The final zone of the exhibition is also dedicated to the “curiosity rooms” at the homes of seven Montréal and Québec based contemporary collectors. It displays their passion and personal universe through the filmed interviews and objects from their collections. Of a special interest especially to children would be the display of objects belonging to a collector Denis Allison who is at once a plangonologist (doll collector), an arctophile (collector of old stuffed toys), and a ludophile (toy collector).

The exhibition layout is a kaleidoscopic display of large installations, each representing an immersive wonder room that recreates the spectacular effect of a cabinet of curiosities, including scores of multicoloured butterflies and birds, along with a multitude of unusual objects from around the world. It also showcases mysterious objects, fantastic creatures, mounted animals, and scientific instruments. Among the more impressive and fascinating are a mastodon tooth, a dinosaur egg, an albino moose, a Victorian-era ornithological display case, aKaga school samurai armour, a two-headed calf, an armillary sphere, and Virginia deer whose antlers became locked in battle, causing their death.

Francine Lelièvre, Executive Director of Pointe-à-Callière states:

“It’s important to remember that cabinets of curiosities are the ancestors of today’s sciences and museums. With this exhibition, we are paying tribute to explorers, scientists, and collectors from every era, driven by a quest for knowledge, cultural diversity, far-away lands, and a rare and sometimes mysterious or exotic object that can spark awe or astonishment in the viewer. In this sense, Into the Wonder Room is a veritable invitation to discover and be fascinated by the diversity of the world. It will surely appeal to visitors of all ages”.

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All Photos @ Nadia Slejskova

For more information on the current exhibitions, activities and programs, visit the PAC Museum's website.

Francine Lelièvre, Executive Director of Pointe-à-Callière

McCord Museum 2019: Kent Monkman

SHAME AND PREJUDICE: A STORY OF RESILIENCE

Exclusive Quebec showing 

February 8 - May 5, 2019

Kent Monkman is a Canadian artist of Cree and Irish ancestry. This is his second nationally touring solo exhibition that he also curates himself. It re-examines Canadian history, from Confederation to today, as if seen through the eyes of a personage he created - Miss Chief Eagle - that represents his own time-travelling, gender-fluid alter ego. This personage, which appears at the exhibition both in sculptural form, moulded on the artist himself, and as a self portraiture in his paintings, is Monkman’s inventive device to reflect on the 150 years of Canadian history of devastating polices vis-a-vis Indigenous people.  It also honours the resilience of the Indigenous people today.

Monkman uses a number of items from the museum’s permanent collection, placing them next to his own works, to create installations that reflect even stronger on the controversial points in Canadian history.

McCord Museum considers this exhibition as a great opportunity to initiate encounters, dialogue and reconciliation around the topic that concerns all Canadians, all human beings, and forces us to reflect on ourselves.

This exhibition has already toured through Western Canada, the Maritimes and Ontario, and McCord Museum is hosting its only Quebec stop. It is Monkman’s second collaboration with the McCord Museum, where he was artist in residence in 2013. During his residency, he created his monumental Welcome to the Studio as a tribute to Montreal, a painting that McCord Museum acquired in 2014.

Exclusive Quebec showing

After a hugely successful tour through Western Canada, the Maritimes and Ontario, Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience is making its only—and highly anticipated—stop in Quebec at the McCord Museum. “Indigenous cultures are a key component of the McCord Museum. It’s an honour to be hosting this outstanding exhibition,” said Suzanne Sauvage. This is Monkman’s second collaboration with the McCord. He was artist in residence in 2013, when he created the monumental work Welcome to the Studio in tribute to Montreal—a painting that the museum acquired in 2014 thanks, in part, to support from Montrealers.

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For more information, visit the McCord Museum website.

True Crime

Centaur Theatre /50th Season

TRUE CRIME

January 8 - 27, 2019

This is a one man show, based on a personal experience of the actor and the writer of the play Torquil Campbell. (You can read more about him here). The play’s twisted narrative about an exceptionally successful, true-life con man was additionally co-created with Crow’s Theatre Artistic Director Chris Abraham, and with Julian Brown.

In his youth, Torquil Campbell was obsessed with true crime reality TV shows. Thanks to his good memory, when in 2009 he read  about Clark Rockefeller having been arrested for kidnapping his own daughter, he recognized him as Christopher Chichester from an old episode of Unsolved Mysteries, where he was wanted in connection with the disappearance of two people. This imposter was born in Germany as Christian Gerhartsreiter, and is currently serving a near-life sentence in a California State prison.

To explain his preoccupation with the criminal, Torquil admits:

"When I saw the pictures of him [Rockefeller] I immediately noticed that we bore a resemblance to each other and I started to realize that a lot of what he had been trying to do for a long time was impersonate someone quite a lot like myself — he was trying to be an effete East Coast preppy WASP! We look alike, we wear the same kind of glasses, we have the same tastes in things … the similarities started to get eerie. And that got me wondering, ‘What would it be like if I tried to become this guy?"

Torquil Campbell plays both characters, himself and the imposter, with a lot of expressive energy, gesticulation, and a rapid change of facial expressions and body language. The differentiation of the two personas is also additionally achieved by the changing of the lights configuration behind the actor. This is a cleaver and quite effective device that also adds to the play’s décor. Yet if you have sensitive eyes, I would advise you to sit away from the stage, to add additional distance to this back stage character lightening signalisation. I was sitting in the second raw and had to look away from the stage during most of the play, as the lights were really bothering my eyes.

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For more information, visit the Centaur Theatre website.

Centaur Theatre, Legacy Series: Schwartz's

SCHWARTZ’S: THE MUSICAL

Created by Rick Blue and George Bowser

Based on book by Bill Brownstein’s

December 14 -16, 2018

To the theatre goes delight, Centaur brought back its great success success Schwartz’s: the Musical that originally appeared on its stages in 2011. It portrays the famous Schwartz's Hebrew Delicatessen on St. Laurence street. It is the story of its history as portrayed in the popular Bill Brownstein’s book The Story of Schwartz's Hebrew Delicatessen about ‘the Main’ (as St. Laurence street was known mainly to the Montreal's English speaking population). The book was later popularised even more when made into a musical by Montreal’s kings of parody, Rick Blue and George Bowser. 

The hearty smoked meat sandwiches offered to their clients at the Schwartz's, became iconic to Montreal as one of its culinary achievements. It attracted not only locals and their friends, but huge number of tourists and even international celebrities, and often a very colourful clientèle.

The musical is a delight to watch. The parody style intermingled with some serious notes, makes this performance very entertaining and informative. A audience will be not only entertained but will also discover the Schwartz's unusual business model and what made them so successful. 

PRODUCTION TEAM

Script, music and lyrics: Rick Blue and George Bowser

Co-Directed: Eda Holmes and Jonathan Patterson

Musical Director: Chris Barillaro

Actors: Chris Barillaro, Rick Blue, George Bowser, Vito DeFilippo, Bruce Dinsmore, Holly Gauthier-Frankel, Dominic Lorange, Stephanie Martin, Gordon Masten and Felicia Shulman

Drummer: Parker Bert

Stage Manager: Melanie St-Jacques

SCHWARTZ’S: THE MUSICAL PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Fri. Dec. 14           8PM
Sat. Dec. 15          8PM
Sun. Dec. 16         2PM

SCHWARTZ’S: THE MUSICAL TICKETS
$30      Regular Adult Admission                                           
$25      Subscriber/Senior

$20      Students                                                                     
 

For more information about scheduling and program, visit the Centaur Theatre website.