Fanning the flames

Stepping outside of your comfort zone can certainly be awkward, but it’s there that Jane Mappin draws much of her creative inspiration. Wanting a little company, perhaps, Mappin recently invited a group of other artists from other disciplines to collaborate. Together they came up with Pale Fire, where the choreographer burrows deep into that drive and need for self-expression through art.

The work—which, incidentally, borrows the title from a novel by Vladimir Nabokov—includes performances by Mappin, her 10-year-old daughter Antonia Mappin-Kasirer and dancers Susan Gaudreau, Mario Radacovsky and Hanako Hoshimi-Caines. Dance photographer Michael Slobodian concocts the visual backdrop, Armando Gomes Rubio works his lighting magic and electroacoustic cellist and composer Erich Kory performs his original score during the spectacle.

After the March 16 show only, speak up at the Q&A session that follows the performance. Pale Fire is at L’Agora de la Danse (840 Cherrier), 8 p.m. nightly from March 14–18, $18–$25, 525-1500. —Marites Carino

Circle games

Four local artists are collaborating on a quirky sound experiment called Voix Voisines tomorrow night, March 10, at Galerie La Centrale (4296 St-Laurent). The women will sing one song after another, in a call-and-response manner.

Multidisciplinary performance artist Nathalie Derome, renowned for her politically charged theatre/musical numbers, will start off the sound-based soirée. Joining her will be spoken word/performance artist Victoria Stanton, whose recent foray into music she describes as “warbling a naïve brand of off-kilter ditties for adult children.” Accompanying Derome and Stanton in this round robin is Kathy Kennedy and Caroline Künzle. Kennedy is a founder of the choral groups Choeur Maha and Esther, as well as Studio XX, who likes to mix her voice with technology. Künzle, meanwhile, is an eclectic musician, billed as trying everything from “Québécois hip hop to electroacoustic folk to free jazz to contemporary screaming compositions.” The show starts at 8 p.m., free. —Christine Redfern

Pilot project

The venerable-yet-funky literary magazine Matrix is making its presence known on the street through a new monthly reading series, The Pilot. “Along with my editorial assistants, I had this idea to really focus on local talent,” explains Jon-Paul Fiorentino. “We might occasionally feature an author from out of town, but it’s really about the Montreal writing scene.” The second installment of The Pilot is a tribute to poet, novelist and Matrix editor-in-chief Rob Allen, author of Standing Wave and The Encantadas. He’ll be on hand, and Jason Camlot, David McGimpsey, Mikhail Iossel and host Fiorentino will recite their fave Allen poems. The evening also features Jani Krulc, Melissa Thompson and Emily Evans. That’s Sunday, March 12, 8:30 p.m. at Blizzarts (3956A St-Laurent), free. —Vincent Tinguely

It’s in the hips

The first time I saw works by choreographer Rodrigo Pederneiras for the contemporary Brazilian dance troupe Grupo Corpo, I was taken by the originality of the movements. The company’s style, Pederneiras explains, has evolved from popular Brazilian dance forms like samba and xaxado. “There, the movement comes from the hips, and today it has become the company signature.”

In its 30 years of existence, this is only Grupo Corpo’s second trip to Montreal. A cast of 22 dancers will perform two choreographies, both by Pederneiras. For Onqotô, he commissioned Brazilian musicians Caetano Veloso and José Miguel Wisnik. Then, switching to a Cuban sound, Lecuona features a string of 12 emotional duets set to a musical backdrop by Ernesto Lecuona, one of Pederneiras’s favourite composers. It runs till March 11, at 8 p.m., $38. —Marites Carino

Is it Art?

CANADIAN GIRLS RULE: What do Biruté Galdikas, Diana Krall and Dr. James Barry have in common? They’re all great Canadian women is what. Galdikas is the world’s foremost authority on orangutans, Krall drives a Chrysler Sebring and Barry (not her given name) was a bad-tempered army surgeon who dressed as a man, flirted with ladies and was always seen with a black poodle. The Kids Book of Great Canadian Women (Kids Can Press), written by Elizabeth MacLeod and illustrated by John Mantha, is full of these fun facts, packed with 125 profiles of dames who have made a difference in fields from songwriting to space travel—helloooo Roberta Bondar. Ages 8–12, available in stores.

ArtsHole

JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF JULES: Director of the Centre international Jules Verne and the Maison Jules Verne in Amiens, France, Jean-Paul Dekiss gets deep on the founding father of science fiction as part of the Pointe-à-Callière museum’s Jules Verne: Writing the Sea exhibition. Dekiss’s presentation will cover Verne’s extraordinary voyages and explore how the world changes between 1750, with the birth of the encyclopaedia, and 1990, with the end of the ideologies of progress. It takes place on March 15, 7 p.m., at the museum; the exhibition continues through April 20. • COUPLES UNCOILED: Montreal artist Maryse Larivière continues her exploration of relationships, a subject she has a certain knack for, in her new exhibition, Wild Is the Wind. Her videos and large-scale photographs show couples in seemingly normal situations, distorted by strange takes on gender roles and touches of eroticism and voyeurism. Created during a recent residency in France, they’re at Galerie Clark (5455 de Gaspé, #114) until April 22.

ARTISTAT: Number of countries probed by filmmaker Pablo Aravena for his expansive graffiti culture exposé Next: A Primer on Urban Painting, opening March 17 at Cinéma du Parc: 9

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