Michel Tremblay,
flamenco style
SWING OUT SISTERS:McGee’s Azafrà Or rouge
When searching for inspiration for her latest choreography, Laura Lynne McGee turned to Quebec playwright Michel Tremblay. “The fast-paced dialogue, slow monologues and the rhythms are similar to flamenco, and that’s how I started looking at Les Belles-soeurs as a Flamenco choreography,” explains McGee, a veteran dancer with the local Ballet Flamenco Arte de España.
At the outset, McGee says it was a challenge. “You relate Michel Tremblay to joual, and dépanneurs, but I had to take that out of my mind.” Inspired by the playwright’s groundbreaking play of 1965, McGee based her Azafrà Or rouge around a gaggle of Spanish women and saffron. Before the piece premiered a year ago, Tremblay himself even came to rehearsals and gave it the thumbs-up.
McGee’s hour-long work for six dancers and six musicians is part of Transatlantique Montréal 2007. After tonight’s (Sept. 20), performance at 8 p.m., participate in the discussion at Sylvain Lelièvre Hall, Maisonneuve College (2700 Bourbonnière), tickets $12–$17. Info: (514) 872-2200.
by Marites Carino
Back alley booty
Local photographer Karine Cossette Barbeau likes to take her art to the streets. Forgoing the crowded sidewalks and congested car lanes, she focuses on the avenues themselves. With a predilection for back alleys, abandoned lots and  their hidden discarded treasures, Cossette’s photographs capture what the rest of us usually ignore.
“Since I started doing photography, about four years ago,” she explains, “I’ve been interested in working outside, in public space, and capturing still life that I consider interesting.” In Drop-Out, her solo exhibit at Espace 427, Édifice Belgo (372 Ste-Catherine. W) until Sept. 23, interesting means everything from broken balloons and smashed mirrors to a collection of fluorescent hamster toys.
Working outside means a minimal set-up and the photographs featured in the show are of a somewhat stark variety, dealing directly with the material in a way that is both vivid and familiar. When asked if she sometimes stages the shots, Cossette was honest about moving a subject out of shadow, but it is the fruits of her hunt that take centre stage. “Most of it is found like that, I don’t need to stage it, because it’s already weird and beautiful enough.”
by Sacha Jackson
Family politics
Since becoming co-artistic director of PME (Les Productions M E de l’art) in 2002, writer, theatre director and filmmaker Jacob Wren’s been bringing a dose of the experimental to audiences in Montreal and internationally. Recently, the PME crew toured Familes Are Formed Through Copulation, a theatrical/performance art event that probed the politically and sociologically conservative underpinnings of the nuclear family.
Now, the original text from the show has become the first part of Wren’s latest book—also titled Familes Are Formed Through Copulation—a series of fragmentary episodes that leads to a paranoiac encounter between the family and a conspiracy theorist.
“On an individual level, so many of our difficulties in our life and tender psychological emotional points spring from our parents, our children and our siblings,” says Wren. “I focus a bit deviously on the family solely as a field of emotional pain.” Wren will be reading, for free, at Casa del Popolo (4873 St-Laurent) on Tuesday, Sept. 25, at 6 p.m.
by Vincent Tinguely
Is it art?
CINEMA L’AMOUR: Porn’s come a long way since the advent of the Internet, but in the process, old-school-style skin flicks have been lost. Black and White and Blue, a new book by author Dave Thompson and published by ECW Press, recounts the history of adult cinema from the first hardcore erotic film (French, unsurprisingly) to the introduction of the VCR in the late ’70s.
Covering everything from how and who made the first blue movies and who watched them (mostly, it seems, roomfuls of men), Black and White traces the history of the American adult film industry right up to the release and popularity of Deep Throat. It’s like Boogie Nights for the cerebral.
Arts
hole
LINE EM UP: The latest from choreographer Debra Brown, Line 1, promises to be funky, sexy and hot. Having worked with Cirque de Soleil, Björk and Madonna, Brown’s newest show features dancing musicians, acrobats and some very fancy footwork. At the Corona Theatre (2490 Notre-Dame W.) Sept. 20–22. • IN MEMORIAM: Local poet, artist and granddaddy of underground Montreal culture, Peter Brawley, who died last year, will be remembered next Friday, Sept. 28 at 7:30 p.m. at the Roy Street Collective (111 Roy E.). The event, “Oh Mona!” A Celebration of the Life of Peter Brawley will showcase the artist’s work, and proceeds from the event will go towards a grave marker.
Artistat
The number of years Festival Orgue (which runs Sept. 21–30 all over town) has been tickling the ivories of Montreal’s church organs: 9 |
