Sarah Deshaies produces the Andrew Carter Morning Show. Every Friday at 8:20am, she tells you about the big, quirky and off-the-beaten-path events happening in Montreal. Here is this week's list, with links for more information so you can get out and enjoy the city! Submit your event to sarah.deshaies@bellmedia.ca.
Pointe-à Calliere Museum presents the 31st edition of the 18th Century Public Market. Experience what it was like to live in Ville-Marie in New France, with historical interpretations of what it was like to live as an Indigenous person or a colonial subject. Learn to fence, see a live fire exercise and try the new beer created for the museum, Pinte-a-Callière. There is also music, dancing and merchants selling food and other other goods. Starting at 10am, until 7pm Saturday, 6pm Sunday at 350 Place Royale.
Look for the puppet shows along the world’s (still) coolest street! The 13th edition of Festival Marionnettes plein la rue will feature performances by 20 different Quebec companies all along Promenade Wellington in Verdun. Look for Parédoîla’s Imagicario, an ambulatory show that features four streetlights. Check the schedule or be spontaneous! With over 45 performances, you are bound to find something special. Until Sunday.
Celebrate Parc Jean Drapeau’s 150 years with the Rendez-Vous Gourmands. The green space’s Floralies Gardens will play host to a variety of flavours. Chef Paul Toussaint of Kamuy has programmed a menu with a myriad dishes, from unagi taco to chermoulah chicken to chimichurri beef cheek. Friday, 4 to 11pm, Saturday noon to 11pm and Sunday, 11am to 9pm.
Chinatown’s Marché de nuit asiatique returns for two weekends, setting up over 30 food vendors at the lot at the corner of St Laurent and René-Lévesque. Organizers have also partnered up again with MURAL, the public art festival, so look for Cambodian Maylee Keo’s live painting, and Bryan Beyung, who will be creating a new mural. Until Sunday, and August 29 to September 1.
Geordie Theatre puts on its annual Family Fair, with music performances by entertainers Shawny and JOe, with a 20-minute play, a performance by the Montreal Steppers, Japanese drumming and traditional Irish music by Grainne. Saturday, 11am to 6pm at Square Sir George Etienne Cartier.
Hudson Village Theatre hosts a tribute to singer Bobby Darin, interpreted by Derek Marshall. Until Sunday.
Circus venue La Tohu puts on the second of its Week-ends aérien. Tightrope walker (and Friday morning guest) Laurence Tremblay-Vu will perform ‘traversées’, walking above the grounds of the Cité des arts du cirque, and sometimes reaching as high up as 78 feet (23 metres). You can take in a circus workshop, see a circus movie screening at Cinéma Beaubien, or watch a Cabaret night, which will feature aerialists from Cirque du Soleil and Cirque Éloize. Until Sunday.
NOFX headlines the two-day Punk in Drublic Festival at the Olympic Park, with a different lineup each night. On Saturday, catch The Interrupters, Scream, Béton Armé, and more; Sunday’s lineup includes, among others: Vulgaires Machins, The Sainte Catherines and Taxi Girls.
Indie English songwriter Passenger at L’Olympia, Friday 8pm.
The musical about the burlesque icon, and symbol of Montreal’s redlight days, Lili St-Cyr, rolls into the Salle André Mathieu in Laval, 8pm Friday and Saturday.
The Montreal Symphony Orchestra pays homage to birthday boy Robert Charlebois on his 80th anniversary. Friday and Saturday at 8pm Maison symphonique. (Thursday’s show sold out!)
Dance and music come together for ‘Flamenco Festival on a summer night” The first half of the show will focused Argentine tango, then Spanish flamenco. Look for tributes to poets Federico García Lorca and Pablo Neruda. Sunday, 8pm at Théâtre Maisonneuve.
The 20th anniversary performance of French-language musical Don Juan has returned home! Gian Marco Schiaretti stars as the libidinous seducer out for love and adventure. Until Saturday at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier.
Last chance to see the remount of Cirque du soleil’s steampunk extravaganza Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities! Step into the Seeker’s wondrous, funny world, filled with contortionists and acrobats! Kurios is at the Big Top in Old Montreal until Sunday.
Forrest Shaw when he headlines at The Comedy Nest, with the support of comics like Simone Holder, Mike Green, Tim Kraft, Hadi Kubba and more. Friday and Saturday, 8 and 10:30pm.
At burlesque headquarters The Wiggle Room, owner Frenchy Jones hosts two soirees:
Girl Band Burlesque, an homage to the pop acts of the ‘90s and 2000s, Friday 9pm. It will feature the talents of Miss Kinky Karma, Rose de Flore, Célesta O’Lee and Zyra Lee Vanity. Saturday, 9pm is Old Hollywood, with The Foxy Lexxi Brown, Minx Arcana, Sucre à la Crème and Mia Culpa. Then, on Sunday, 8pm: Wiggling In, a competition for new burlesque talent, with cash prizes and appearances up for grabs!
ONGOING EVENTS
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’s latest show Saints, Sinners and Fools, a massive exhibit tracing three centuries of Flemish masterworks, including pieces by Rubens and van Dyck. You can also check out an exhibit on pop art and Japanese artist Hiroshige’s landscapes.
The McCord-Stewart Museum would also provide respite from the rainy weather: check out two new photography shows: a retrospective of the work of inventive, playful celebrity photo Norman Parkinson and Portraits and Fashion, a collection of iconic images captured by Quebec fashion photographers like Norman Jean Roy and Andréanne Gauthier.
Normand Brathwaite’s New Orleans Blues is a live concert in homage to the Crescent City’s famously musical French Quarter, anchored by immersive projections and a Cajun menu designed by Chef Paul Toussaint. Until September 1 at the Studio-Cabaret at Espace St Denis.
Take a walk downtown to look out for 15 giant pink sculptures! Le Mignonisme is a series of sculptures known as Monsieur Rose, from the mind of artist Philippe Katerine. You’ll find them along an art walk downtown, including the Quartier des Spectacles and Place des Arts to the Esplanade PVM at Place Ville Marie and Phillips Square. Until September 29.
At the Botanical Gardens, look for the hardy hibiscus and black-eyed-susans, while the lilies are at the end of their blooms. Check out the other blooms of the week here. And check out Telling Our Story - The Territory, a photo and sound exhibit profiling the province’s 11 Indigenous communities at the First Nations Garde
Pointe-À-Callière Museum has launched a first-in-Canada show, Olmecs and the Civilizations of the Gulf of Mexico Explore 4,000 years of Olmec history through nearly 300 objects, some of which will be seen for the first time by the public. What’s fascinating is that traces of the Olmecs were not really “discovered” until the 1800s. This show, a collaboration with Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, runs until September 15.
Explore the beauty and diversity of our natural world in Root for Nature. This new, 90-minute show is a “nature hike” indoors, conceived as a powerful piece of edutainment inspired by the COP15 biodiversity talks hosted by Montreal in late 2022. This collaboration between National Geographic and OASIS Immersive Studios will take place in the same location as the UN conference, at the Palais des congrès. Also at the venue: Dreaming of Asia is a stunning exploration of Chinese and Japanese culture, making its North American premiere at OASIS Immersions. French digital art studio Danny Rose has crafted four different experiences, including a look at shadow puppet theatre.
Visit the city’s newest museum: Centre des Mémoires Montréalaises promises to capture the metropois’ history and citizens. Check out the vintage neon signs at the entrance, and look for the colourful balls that once decorated Ste-Catherine in the Gay Village. There are two exhibitions up now: a lookback at the 90 years of Le Chaînon, the women’s shelter and resource centre, and Détours, which focuses on hidden corners of the city. Located at 1201 St Laurent.