Celebrating Sullivan

Walking through the Françoise Sullivan retrospective at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is a bit like taking a stroll through the shifts and turns of the art de chez nous from the last half of the 20th century.

Sullivan started her career as a dancer, choreographer and member of the Quebec avant-garde along with Paul-Émile Borduas; today she is best known for her glowing colour-field paintings.

Sullivan started to make her mark in the 1940s: her lecture "Dance and Hope" - the first theoretical writing on modern dance in Quebec - was published with the now-famous Refus global manifesto of which Sullivan was also a signatory. The only surviving images of her choreography from this period can be seen in the photographs of Dance in the Snow from 1947.

Sullivan's creative trajectory then led her to sculpture in the '60s and conceptual projects in the '70s, before she picked up her paintbrush in earnest during the '80s. The meditative and hypnotic painting installation "Canto" from 2002 concludes the exhibit of this multitalented Montrealer, which continues until Oct. 5 » Christine Redfern

Verdure's last call

The summer dance series at the outdoor theatre in Parc Lafontaine comes to an end this weekend. As with most years, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens will close the nocturnal meetings at the Théâtre de Verdure with a run of modern dance à la Nacho Duato.

Spectators will be treated to a performance of Jardí Tancat, which, translated from Catalonian, means "closed garden." This moving piece, which premiered in the Netherlands in 1983, was Duato's first choreography. The work features three peasant couples recounting their tribulations with the land and is set to the smooth vocals of Portuguese songstress Maria del Mar Bonet.

Duato's 1998 piece Without Words is the other part of the evening's program and takes on themes of love and death.

Take note, show times have changed to 7:30 p.m.; doors open 30 minutes before each performance, Aug. 26-28. » Marites Carino

Art mega-market

Want to art up your pad without breaking the bank? With most works between a toonie and $20 (and others stretching up to $1,500), the Photographic Garage Sale is a pretty good bet. Now in its fifth year, the sale features test prints and framed photos from over 20 Montreal artists, as well as paintings, drawings, printmaking and sculpture. More than 2,000 works in total will be up for grabs.

The sale has two openings: Thursday and Friday, Aug. 21-22, and continues through Saturday and Sunday from noon-6 p.m. (305 Bellechasse, ground floor, Rosemont metro). » Matthew Woodley

Digging for talent

The National Campus and Community Radio Association is looking for spoken word with a hip hop bent for its ongoing Dig Your Roots compilation CD project. "Community radio stations want to play local artists." says Dig Your Roots national coordinator Melissa Kaestner. "Spoken word is something that is very hard for campus stations to get access to, so this is one way to bring it to them."

One hundred spoken word artists will have their pieces featured on the Dig Your Roots Web site, and 15 of them will be selected for the final compilation, which will be launched in March 2004 with a series of shows across the country. The deadline is Sept. 26; interested artists can go to www.digyourroots.ca for all relevant info on submitting their audio pieces. » Vincent Tinguely

Is it Art?

SCARE CITY: The Old Port isn't just a ghost town in the winter. Exposing the living dead who spend year round in the 'hood, the Old Montreal Ghost Trail offers thrills and chills through a trio of rotating tours with regular departures until Aug. 31. The Traditional Ghost Walk (Wed-Sun) explores legends of the area; the Crime Scenes Tour (Thurs-Sat) invites guests to meet murderous villains and their maimed victims, before getting summoned to serve as a juror on the trial of a famous crime; and the New France Ghost Hunt (Fridays) pits teams against each other with clues and a map to scavenge among the lurking spirits of New France. $7-$15, 868-0303 for full schedule.

ArtsHole

COLLECTIVE CLEANING: Always on the edge, that Roy Street Collective. First it was the off-Fringe, now it's off-the-Main with their Vente de Garage, a fundraising art-and-anything-else sale - including odds and ends from the architecture firm they share space with - just around the corner from the cheap-sock madness of the St-Laurent street fair. Runs from Aug. 22-24 (111 Roy E.). • DANGER: Sébastien Cliche brings the omnipresent warnings of the world - product labels, insurance ads, public transport graphics - to the forefront in his exhibition of the unsafe, Accidents de la vie courante (photos, paintings, drawings and text) at Skol (460 Ste-Catherine W., #511) until Sept. 27.

ARTISTAT: Number of international artists participating in the Festival d'Art Contemporain des Laurentides, continuing until Aug. 31 in the Mont-Tremblant area (www.cacqm.com for details): 44

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