Things to do in Paris

She was 21, living for the first time in a foreign country and stuck in her head. She found the people in her temporarily adopted home of France "uptight and unfriendly," the men "scary." So what did Kim Waldron do?

"I called people up and asked them if I could borrow their workplace and the clothes that they work in for about a hour," she explains. "I'd get dressed up and take a picture."

Waldron played dress-up in 17 places in all, briefly standing in for a wide range of identities, from butcher to architect to documentary filmmaker to detective (!), the results of which can be seen in her working assumption exhibition at La Centrale (4296 St-Laurent) until Dec. 12.

Though the expected undertone of awkwardness in the series always pokes through, there's an overall lightness in seeing the same person in 17 different sets of clothes too big for her, interrupting the normal course of so many monsieurs' workdays by gaining access to their professional lives and the Parisian-flavoured settings in which they take place. Waldron, now 25, fond of the French and most self-assured, gives a talk tonight, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. » Matthew Woodley

Body rock

Imagine all the electrical equipment used to give life to an electric guitar - amp, effect pedals, cables etc. - not hooked up to a guitar, but to a dancer. Choreographer Danièle Desnoyer calls this assemblage a "sound station," and we find three of them in her piece Duos pour corps et instruments. In it, a trio of dancers (Sophie Corriveau, AnneBruce Falconer, and Siôned Watkins) string together a dialogue with the equipment through sound, movement and a series of triggers. Just as each dancer's movement has its own character, explains Desnoyer, "each sound station has its own sound."

For this show, the choreographer wanted to create an especially intimate feel, so the theatre's normal setup has been reconfigured to put the audience in clusters around the stations. The work, which premiered at the 2003 FIND, runs at l'Agora de la Danse (840 Cherrier) until Nov. 20, 8 p.m. nightly, 525-1500. » Marites Carino

Loft and found

Not afraid of a big entry into Montreal's art scene, three Victoria ex-pats have shipped the 300 square feet of drawings and paintings on cheap paper that once covered the walls of their former home, to their present digs in St-Henri. Thing is, the new loft doesn't have enough wall space to accommodate all the work, so Matt Shane, Jim Holyoak and Fike Anderson have built a giant paper labyrinth that'll surely, well, immerse viewers in their work. The Utopic Dream of the Sun in a Box, which officially inaugurates Gallery No Show (4035 St-Ambroise, #401), runs until Dec. 4, 935-7087. » Matthew Woodley

Time stretched

The new exhibition Timelength is about slowing down the experience of the viewer so that they may see "the duration of time." Curator Michèle Thériault brings together the videos of Pascal Grandmaison, Gwen MacGregor, Jocelyn Robert, Jeroen de Rijke and Willem de Rooij at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery (1455 de Maisonneuve). Thériault writes in the catalogue, "Only when duration... presents itself as an excess, only then does it become visible and its manifestations can take the form of profound boredom, suffering or joy."

Unfortunately, this exhibition is heavy on the boredom angle. De Rijke and de Rooij's film is the most successful, as it rivets our gaze with its compelling and repelling image of a slum. The back of the gallery contains films by Michael Snow and some of Andy Warhol's Screen Tests. For all you Warhol fans, there is a special screening of his eight-hour epic Empire on Dec. 12, 4 p.m. at la Sala Rossa, (4848 St-Laurent). Exhibit runs until Dec. 22, info: 848-2424 ext. 4750. » Christine Redfern

Is it Art?

LEVITATION AND X-RAY VISIONWAY TO HELL: The following are the actual lyrics, followed by a Falun Gong translation, of AC/DC's "Highway to Hell," when entered into Faith Converter 1.7, a Macintosh program that translates text into the lexicon of 27 different belief systems. It's available at www.versiontracker.com.

"Hey Satan, paid my dues/Playing in a rocking band/Hey Momma, look at me/I'm on my way to the promised land/I'm on the highway to hell!"

"Hey Hu Jintao, payed my dues/Playing in a rocking band/Hey Momma. look at me/ I'm on my way to the promised land/ I'm on the levitation and x-ray visionway to Dharma Ending Period!"

ArtsHole

CREMASTER COMMANDER: Former high school jock, male model and med-school dropout, and now a performance art mega-star, Matthew Barney's The Cremaster Cycle, a series of five feature-length films, screens in its entirety for the first time in Montreal, Nov. 20-28, at the Cinquième Salle at Place des Arts. $9-$12 per screening or $22-$30 for the full series 842-2112 or www.macm.org for the full schedule. • GOOD THINGS IN THREES: Newish NDG gallery La Fabriq (4467 Earnscliffe) unveils its second-ever group show today, Nov. 18, 6-9 p.m. Illustré: 3 espaces peints features dramatic portraits by Sukiana Kubba, architecture-esque etchings on metal by Jinny M.J. Yu and ephemeral landscapes by Sarah Rooney. It runs until Jan. 15.

ARTISTAT: Number of 10-minute plays, covering topics from breakups to baseball to cocktails, running from November 18-21 at the Geordie Space (4001 Berri, 288-7212) in the 6th Avenue Players production 8x10: 8

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