Paranoiac pulse

Every year, dance space Tangente (840 Cherrier) celebrates International Women's Day with a special event called SaGeste, highlighting the work of women choreographers.

One of this year's chosen ones is local choreographer Claudia Fancello. You may be familiar with Fancello's work as member and co-founder of the groovin' Solid State Breakdance collective. Here she goes solo in Pins and Needles, a piece that probes the world of fears and phobias.

Also in the soirée, New York choreographer Sarah Skaggs performs three short solos of varied themes, and Halifax dancer Sally Morgan performs in Montreal for the first time and presents a piece called more earth, he said. Skaggs uses video, text and dance to deliver an emotional, personal work.

Check out this trio of feminine talent March 11–13 at 8:30 p.m. and March 14 at 4 p.m, 525-1500. » Marites Carino

Art students attack

While many students may have spent last week pouring Bud on themselves at Daytona Beach, the assiduous fine artists at Concordia laboured away on their craft for Art Matters. The university's 100 per cent student-run festival kicks of this Friday, March 5, and it keeps getting bigger.

What started in 2000 as five students itching to have their stuff exposed to a wider audience this year's number of participants is somewhere around 250 - actors, animators, painters, puppet-makers, electroacousticians, musicians and other artists of every conceivable type spread out in 20 venues across the city. There's a seven-hour dance marathon with a cash prize, a travelling lying booth, a voyeurism installation, symposiums, workshops, a "Liberal-Arts Re-Interpretation of Aristophanes," and a "looped banal circumstance that perpetuates the high-art mentality through satirical modes of representation." Yes. For more info or the full program, visit http://artmatters.concordia.ca. » Matthew Woodley

Unrefined wit

Inspired by the Kalmunity collective vibe, Kaie Kellough's organizing Ensemble, featuring musicians from Kalmunity and Ark of Infinity. "I guess I'm no longer so interested in seeing artists present their 'finished, refined works,' but in seeing how we react in the instant, when we have to rely on our wits," Kellough explains. He's invited Stephen Thomas, Katalyst, Jason Selman and Josephine Watson to join him on the mic. "The event will have three sets," says Kellough. "A brief a capella set, spontaneously chosen combinations of poets and musicians, and the third will have all of the musicians playing together while the poets join them one after the other." At Café Silencio (3645 Notre Dame W.) on Saturday, March 6, 8:30 p.m., $7. » Vincent Tinguely

Fresh air

In an old textile factory just south of Jean-Talon (7154 St-Urbain), a new art space is born. Its first occupants will be 26 Concordia University graduate fine arts students showing their latest oeuvres in the group exhibition Forced Air, part of the Art Matters festival. At tomorrow's opening, Stains, Scratches and Celluloid, a film project organized by Troy Rhoades, shows the work of nine filmmakers in two screenings at 6 and 8 p.m. Also greeting all visitors every Friday will be The Secretary, a performance piece conceived by Andréa Vander Kooij that involves, she says, "an excessive use of office supplies."

In the permanent exhibition, one of the many works on view is Meredith Carruthers' "Please Put Me Back in the Water." This video document shows her walking down the Décarie expressway in a paper dress shaped like a boat. She calls it a "subtlety shifting inquiry into the Canadian landscape tradition." Forced Air runs Thursdays–Sundays, noon–5 p.m., until March 19. » Christine Redfern

Is it Art?

SUCKERS AND SCENTS: Move over celebs, there's a new kid on the fragrance block. Chupa Chups has long established its reign in lollipop land, with 40 flavours ready for the lickin' in 170 countries worldwide - that's one in three of all lollies consumed, adding up to about 4.5 billion sucked each year. Now their brand-new line of I Love Me scents puts them in the books as the first lollipop maker to sell perfume. Who could expect anything less of a company whose logo was designed by Salvador Dali and whose "irrevant, non-conformist image and unconventional candies have attracted a growing following of celebrities around the world"? The perfumes, which come in three varieties, retail for $25 in drugstores. For more information on Chupa Chups, including their graduate program for young professionals, visit www.chupachups.com.

ArtsHole

LETTERS, THEY'VE GOT LETTERS: The Group of n minds their p's and q's with Le F-Word, a thematic group show that looks into notions of feminism in Montreal's visual arts underground at Galerie 303 (372 Ste-Catherine W., #303) until April 3. The exhibition is n's contribution to Studio 303's Edgy Women performance series, which takes place later this month. • CLONE CALLING: If you've got a look-alike, François Brunelle may be looking for you. The Montreal-based photographer has been taking portrait shots of resembling pairs - provided they're not related by blood - for his book project, I'm not a look-alike, addressing themes of identity, resemblance and, gulp, cloning. Interested models can contact him through his Web site, www.lookalikesproject.com.

ARTISTAT: Number of languages represented in the upcoming Blue Metropolis festival, Montreal's international bookish blowout, which takes place from March 31–April 4, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel (Ste-Catherine and Jeanne- Mance): 13

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