Operation desert storm

A combination of Woodstock, a Mad Max movie and a Salvador Dali painting, the Burning Man Festival takes place every year in the Black Rock desert of Nevada. About 50,000 artists (and just plain weird people) converge there to camp for about a week. A core of them work for months in advance to create huge art installations, which can be anything from a music venue to a hammock haven to four huge 80-ton granite blocks suspended in the air for people to climb on.

The results are surreal as the installations are spread over miles of desert. Some spectators walk naked, others ride in 100-foot-long "art" cars to view the work. The centrepiece is a "10 Story High Man" that's lit on fire on the final night. When it ignites, the flames and heat are so intense that tornadoes start from the updraft that leave the fire and drift off into the crowd, sucking dust up into the sky.

Black Rock Burning, a documentary on the festival produced by Aleece Germano, screens Oct.11 at 10 p.m., kicking off a week of great evening events at the SAT (1195 St-Laurent) organized by Lucinda Catchlove as part of the FCMM's New Media section. Info: 844-2033 or www.fcmm.com. » Christine Redfern

Cigar girls and solidarity

Friday night sees much talent working to make the world a better place. On the local front, Carnival Cabaret, a benefit for Head and Hands, kicks off at Kola Note (5240 Parc). Says organizer Fiona Keats, "The first part of the evening has a carnival booth atmosphere, with tarot readings, a confession booth, a hugging booth, love-a-grams, cigar girls selling treats, and a cast of circus-performers being interactive with the crowd." The second part features Catherine Kidd, dancer/spoken word artist Erin May and poetry/guitar duo Mona Lisa & Leonardo. Oct. 10 at 8 p.m., $10.

On the global scale, Resisting the Occupation From Montreal to Palestine at La Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent) is raising funds for the International Solidarity Movement, a non-violent direct action organization based in Palestine. Says local activist Stefan Christoff, "The funds will help to send people to participate in the olive harvest campaign, to accompany farmers to ensure they can harvest their olives safely." The show includes poet Kaie Kellough, the Kalmunity Collective and Montreal-based Iraqi hip hop crew Euphrates. Oct.10 at 9 p.m., $7. » Vincent Tinguely

Pecking order

A cockfighting ring may be the last place you'd expect choreographers to experience a moment of inspiration, but that's what happened to Lee Su-Feh and David McIntosh. They make up Vancouver's Battery Opera, a company that intermingles the disciplines of dance, theatre and performance art.

The duo got the idea for their recent work, Spektator, after watching their first-ever cockfight while on vacation in the Philippines. Using this often-bloody spectacle sport as a starting point for their creation, Su-Feh and McIntosh will transform the Darling Foundry (745 Ottawa) into an arena of sorts, with the audience members surrounding the stage from all sides. Addressing the issues of violence and confrontation, the pair also draws from boxing in their energetic piece, a part of FIND. Oct. 9-11 at 9 p.m., 844-2172. » Marites Carino

Mind geography

Portraits by members of Les Impatients, a program for mental patients to express themselves through art, are currently showing at the group's gallery (100 Sherbrooke E., #4000). Noir et blanc sur les Impatients features photos of Impatients by Hungarian-born artist Gabor Szilasi and many by Impatients themselves - though no one can quite remember who took what. "Such was the power of the mutual exchange between the participants and I," explains Szilasi.

Photos are accompanied by quotes from the person in the shot, this one from Michel: "I was born on Cartier in Montreal. My mother died of a heart failure when I was eleven and my father, of cancer when I was thirteen. I was interned at St-Jean-de-Dieu at eleven. I stayed there for about 35 years. For the last ten years I've been living in a group support apartment. I'm lucky. I have two dogs that I like very much." » Matthew Woodley

Is it Art?

BALM FROM THE BLOCK: One of the more pungent arrivals in Mirror mail of late, J. Lo's new fragrance, "Still," begs the question: can this stuff beat the funk of the superstar's Latina-pop? Two years ago, Lopez joined the ranks of fellow celebs-with-scents such as Luciano Pavarotti, Celine Dion and Michael Jordan, with her début fragrance, "Glow." Soon after its launch, the singer/etc. was taken to court by a smaller L.A.-based scentmaker with a perfume bearing the same name. The Lopez team won and Glow is still available in stores, readily identifiable by its trademark necklace-around-the-bottle design. In the same tradition (just add irony), Still, "a scent that captures the way a woman feels when she has captured herself," is adorned with a faux diamond ring. $49.99.

ArtsHole

AWKWARD ENCOUNTERS: Sandra Lachance's interactive installation, Ineptie, pits a talkative pre-recorded image against the spectator in a situation designed to explore the boundaries of social awkwardness and feelings of incapacity when confronted with other's sufferings. Runs from Oct. 9-Nov. 8 at Skol (460 Ste-Catherine W., #511). • WET WALLS: Eau, an exhibition of 35 photographers' perspectives on H2O continues at Blowup Gallery (800 Place Victoria, ground floor) until Oct. 31. • '70s-BORN SNAPPERS: A Web site well worthy of a visit featuring local photographers Jocelyn Michel and Guillaume Simoneau has just been launched at www.7478.com, the artists' respective birth years. Shots cover vast terrain from local hero portraits, protests and international expeditions.

ARTISTAT: Number of artifacts on display at The Scots - Dyed-in-the-Wool Montrealers, an exhibition that traces the beyond-the-bagpipe influences of highlanders (whiskey, McGill, curling and more) in Montreal history, at the McCord Museum (690 Sherbrooke W.) until Sept., 2004: 250+ 

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