Dancing in the deep end

Most of the city's usual dance stages shut down during the languid summer months, leaving choreographers like Sasha Kleinplatz to scope out the town for alternative performance venues. This can have its advantages. "When you start putting dance in new places, you start bringing in a different audience," says Kleinplatz, who has organized an evening of short dance works at pool-turned-performance-space, Bain St-Michel (5300 St-Dominique).

Seeing the pool for the first time gave Kleinplatz visions of dance in the deep end, and she called up fellow Concordia dance graduates Namchi Bazar, Dana Michel and Andrew Tay to dive into a project with the intention to "take a less serious approach to choreography and just take chances." Their humour-heavy choreographic piscine party, piss in the pool, shows June 24–25 at 8 p.m., info: elektro313@hotmail.com. » Marites Carino

Here's looking at you

Well-known for her paintings of imaginary characters, Janet Werner's latest figures now populate the Saidye's Liane and Danny Taran Gallery (5170 Côte-Ste-Catherine). Unlike her past work, which was all of invented persona, this new series of portraits was inspired by a wide range of sources: from figurines and dolls, to images of models taken from fashion magazines. The wrinkle-free, idealized faces, says Werner, were "perfect, because they are nobody, no name... universal".

The paintings are mostly of women. As they gaze back at us from the walls they are symbols of perfection and happiness, but there is also something serious and awkward in the manner they're painted that brings them back to reality. Werner's juxtaposition of individuals and elements often suggests a hidden narrative. Not many clues are provided, so stop by the opening tonight and make up your own stories to accompany each painting. It goes from 6:30–8:30pm, preceded by a tour of the exhibition with the artist and curator Renee Baert. Runs until Aug. 21, info: 739-2301. » Christine Redfern

Orwell and dub

The ever-unfolding talent that is d'bi young launches a first book and mounts a one-woman show this fall, but right now she's appearing at the Suoni fest to promote her new Zoobone Records single.

"‘Animal Farm' is inspired by George Orwell's books, 1984 and Animal Farm," says Young. "It's a satirical look at the state of world affairs, a wake-up call." Young sounds the alarm with dubbin.revolushun, the funk-heavy crew she's been fronting for a few years. "I wanna push the music - so much dub poetry comes out of the music," Young asserts. "It feels like to bring it there is to discover another part of myself." Saturday, June 25, 8 p.m. at la Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent) $8–$10. » Vincent Tinguely

All things come to an n

After a long string of wild art parties in an eighth-floor loft on Ontario, toy shows, photocopy presentations, erotic exhibitions and a curatorial stint at Galerie 303, the group of n is calling it quits. But why? "It's lived out its life span, reached its purpose, it's not the fresh, punk rock energy it used to be" says the group of n's flo. "It's time to gracefully close the book you've finished reading. I'm tired and I'm ready to go to sleep."

To celebrate the closing of an era, core members flo, colin and maclean have invited a gang of past members to exhibit in the end of n, before the collective bows out and moves on - 11 distinguished guests in total. "These are the strongest artists we've worked with over the years," says flo, "the people who consistently put the bacon in the pan." The bash goes down tonight, Thursday, June 23, at Blizzarts (3956A St-Laurent). » Matthew Woodley

Is it Art?

READING RAILROAD: There's a hot new activity going on in town this summer and people call it book crossing (except francophones, who call it passe-livre). Earlier this month, more than 200 books were left to fate in public places around the city - cafés, bus stops, parks and so on - set out to spawn a kind of accidental book club. It's working. Since then, most of them have been found, read and let loose again for someone else to enjoy. Those who read the books are asked to register them on a Web site where they can exchange comments with other readers and track the path of enlightenment as it grows. The idea was born in the U.S. a few years back and has since blossomed in popularity, particularly in France and Italy. Montreal's incarnation, which also includes set-up stalls at selected booksellers, is brought to you by its current status as World Book Capital. Read up at http://mcml.canoe.com.

ArtsHole

ANCIENT LANGUAGE GOES DIGITAL: Coinciding with National Aboriginal Day, the SAT (1195 St-Laurent) unveiled a new line of software with a Northern reflection this week: Inuktichat™ is an online Inuktitut chat environment; Inuktiboard™ is the first Inuktitut language keyboard; and Inukticode™ is a universal tool for Inuktitut conversion and transliteration. • EYE ON AFGHANISTAN: Canadian photojournalists Roger Lemoyne, Lana Slezic, Robert Semeniuk and Christopher Grabowski team up to present a decade of images from Afghanistan, focusing primarily on "civilian life caught in the crossfire." Kites, Guns & Dreams is at galerie [sas] (372 Ste-Catherine W., #416) until Aug. 7.

ARTISTAT: Average age of the ghosts you'll encounter of you go on the Old Port Ghost Hunt, a hair-raising historical walk through the cobblestone streets of old Montreal, on their first presentation, Thursday, June 30, www.phvm.qc.ca for all the info: about 175

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