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.
Explore the underground city with Festival Art Souterrain. Dozens of artworks are on exhibit in the downtown tunnel network, under this year’s theme of environmental justice. Guided walking tours are available all weekend, at $8 a pop, leaving from both the Eaton Centre and the World Trade Centre. Kids can sign up for an environmental dye workshop at Centre Eaton, Saturday at 10:30. Until April 7.
Go on an Easter egg hunt at the Ecomuseum in Ste Anne’s, where kids can learn about the different kinds of eggs produced by actual animals at the zoo. Easter at the Zoo goes Saturday, Sunday and Monday; advance reservations are encouraged for the egg hunt (chocolate included!)
Two art forms that rely on theatricality and intense physicality meet in the ring in Slam! The new show combines the efforts of two Quebec City companies: circus troupe Fip Fabrique and Robert LePage’s Ex Machina. After its opening at LePage’s Le Diamant in Quebec City, the show has just opened at La Tohu, running until April 7.
Join Montreal filmmaker (and our Friday morning guest) Adrian Wills as he seeks out his roots in A Quiet Girl. Wills treks back to scenic Newfoundland, where he was born, but in his search of his birth mother, he unearths some disquieting truths, both about his mother and the process of adoption at the time. His search has a universal quality, and the jaw-dropping scenery of the Rock alone is worth the viewing. Stream for free at the NFB website.
Previews start Sunday at the Segal Centre for Fifteen Dogs, an adaptation of André Alexis’s novel about dogs gaining consciousness. Two deities, Hermes and Apollo, make a bet over a drink and decide to grant awareness to 15 dogs in a kennel. Mirabella Sundar Singh, who was in the original sold-out Crow’s Theatre production in Toronto, is reprising her role. And on Sunday at 11am, join me for free coffee and pastries for our Sunday @ The Segal panel chat: playwrights Michaela Di Cesare and Alice Abracen will talk about the challenge of adapting different stories to the stage.
Also at the Segal, karaoke with a kick: Broadway Café will pit classic Broadway tunes with newer pop tunes. Hosts Arash Ebrahimi is for the former, while Natalie Demmon champions the latter. Saturday, 8pm.
Final weekend to see Torontonian Diane Flacks perform her one woman show about how she imploded her home life. Guilt (a Love Story) recounts her split from her wife, and the fallout on their children, as well as the community. Flacks reunites with collaborator Alisa Palmer as director; her performance includes a sandbox and a raccoon alter ego. Until Saturday.
Final call for the relaunch of a mega-popular dance extravaganza that melds circus and electronic music over a sprawling landscape. Brigitte Poupart’s Jusqu'à ce qu'on meure (Until We Die) opens with the sound of a crash, with dancers spaced out in separate vignettes. The action is fluid, moving from corner to another, with the dancers mingling through the crowd. Daring acrobatics, lasers and spacy monologues follow, ending with a triumphant tone and dance party. Until Saturday at the Arsenal in Griffintown.
Old Montreal’s culinary event Happening Gourmand wraps up on Saturday: Sup on three-course table d’hote menus set at $39, $49 and $59, or choose from a two-course table d’hote weekend brunch menu. Participants include Italian eatery Bevo, Kyo Bar Japonais, French brasseries Gaspar and Modavie, and Maggie Oakes.
Friday’s music picks: Dubbed “the buzziest British band” right now by the NY Times, girl band The Last Dinner Party rocks out with all their theatricality at MTelus, 8pm. Peruvian-American rapper A.CHAL at Le Studio TD, 8pm. The Caracal Project will be joined by Crimewave and Trench Foot, at Newspeak, 10pm.
Globe-trotting show Queen Symphonic plays the best of the legendary British band with a rock quintet, four vocalists and a 35-member symphony orchestra, 8pm at Maison symphonique.
Ursa and Pop Montreal wrap up the Anti-Jazz Police Festival, a show that tests the limit of the genre with experimental, electronic and old school vibes.Two shows Friday: Charlotte Greve and Sarah Pagé at 5pm, and Oren Bloedow, Unessential Oils and Concurence at 8pm, at Ursa Bar on Parc Ave.
Saturday’s music picks: Country singer-songwriter Warren Zeiders, MTelus, 8pm. Malian singer-songwriter Fatoumata Diawara, Beanfield 8pm. R&B Sri Lankan-Swiss singer Priya Ragu at Le Studio TD, 8pm. Dance the night away with Chris Luno, DJ Poolboi and Sunflwr at Theatre Fairmount, 11pm.
Nuits d’Afrique continues its series of weekend concerts, Les Cabarets Acoustique, with Team Salsa Sextet’s melding of New York and Afro-Caribbean stylings, Saturday, 9pm at Club Balattou.
Sunday’s music picks: Indie rock lineup at L’Olympia with Ciel Noir, Codeine, Duster, Snow Strippers and more, 8pm.
RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 champ (and the show’s first trans winner!) Sasha Colby puts on a show at the Beanfield Theatre, Friday 8pm. (A lovely lead-in to Sunday being the International Day for Transgender Visibility.)
Festival de la voix programming includes a workshop lead by Frédéricka Petit-Homme, titled Gospel and the Greater Good, Saturday 1-4pm.
A dozen performers will perform original works or existing excerpts in the Montreal Monologue Mash II. A jury then selects two of the best to return to redo their pieces with fresh direction. Friday, 7:30pm at MainLine Theatre.
It’s All-Star Stand-Ups at The Comedy Nest, with nine comedians stuffed into 90 minutes, like Joey Elias, Mike Paterson, Elspeth Wright, Abbas Wahab, and more! Friday and Saturday, 8 and 10:30pm.
Several shows on tap at Montreal Improv in St Henri, including Bad Imitations, where improvisers will try out their best impressions of people both fictional and IRL, Friday, 8pm.
At burlesque headquarters The Wiggle Room: owner Frenchy Jones hosts two nights of magic: Vintage Tease goes Friday, 9pm with Olivia Killjoy, Rosie Bourgeoisie, Mina Minou and Wild D’Lilah. Catch Yaya Havana, Enshantay, Roxy Torpedo and Zyra Lee Vanity tease to songs from 90s Hip Hop and RnB, Saturday, 9pm. Yikes Macaroni hosts Strip Cheese, an eccentric night of burlesque, Sunday 9pm with Petro, Miss Behave, Rosa Golde, Quinzy Chase and Moonshine Sunshine.
ONGOING EVENTS
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.
The Horizon of Khufu: A Journey in Ancient Egypt is a virtual reality experience that brings you into the giant pyramid in Giza, a 146-metre high pyramid built nearly 3,000 years before the Common era. Noted Egyptologist Peter Der Manuelian will be your guide. Studio PHI has brought in this for a North American first. Until May 31, in the Old Port at 2 rue de la Commune.
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts explores how nature inspired two great artists of the 20th cetury. Georgia O’Keefe and Henry Moore: Giants of Modern Art is an exhibit curated by the San Diego Museum of Art; it recreates both artists’ studios down to minute detail. Admire O’Keefe bodacious flowers and landscapes, contrasted with Moore’s sculptures inspired by stones and bones, and his Helmet heads. Until June 2.
The Arsenal hosts Immersive Disney Animation, which spotlights House of Mouse characters and music, including movies like Frozen, The Lion King and The Little Mermaid. At Arsenal Contemporary Gallery until May 4.
The McCord Stewart Museum’s excellent and informative Indigenous Voices of Today: Knowledge, Trauma, Resilience. The show profiles the 11 nations living within the borders of Quebec, with testimonies and carefully curated objects. Two of the McCord’s current shows include Becoming Montreal is about the depictions of the city in the 1800s, and Wampum: Beads of diplomacy, which displays over 40 wampum belts from different collections, underscoring their symbolism and history.
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 exhibition 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.