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.
Friday is National Indigenous Peoples Day. Resilience Montreal and POP have a stacked free, outdoor show planned at Cabot Square, with Aysanabee, Beatrice Deer Band and the Sinquah Family Hoop dancers on the bill, 3-7pm.
You can learn more about this province’s 11 Indigenous communities at the Botanical Garden, which is launching Telling Our Story - The Territory, a photo and sound exhibit adapted from a documentary produced by Terre Innue. It is located outdoors in the First Nations Garden. Or visit the McCord Stewart Museum’s excellent and informative Indigenous Voices of Today: Knowledge, Trauma, Resilience. Testimonies and carefully curated objects make up this thoughtful exhibit. At Cinéma Moderne, the 2023 true crime documentary Soleils Atikamekw profiles an unsolved crime in Manawan, 1977, when five Atikamekw people were found, lifeless, in a van. It screens Friday, 4:45pm
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is offering free admission for Indigenous Peoples Day, where you can First Nations artworks, as well as a current exhibit on pop art and Japanese artist Hiroshige’s landscapes. But you will need to pay for entrance for the latest show Saints, Sinners and Fools, a massive exhibit tracing three centuries of Flemish masterworks, including pieces by Rubens and van Dyck.
The Francos de Montréal wind down with a mix of free outdoor and ticketed indoor shows around the Place des Festivals. Folk-pop singer Beyries at Theatre Maisonneuve, Saturday, 8pm. Rappers Canicule perform at Club Soda, Saturday, 8pm. Les Francos wrap up Saturday. Rockers Les Trois Accords perform the big free outdoor show on Friday, and Saturday’s culminating free show is Ambiance R&B, a celebration of the genre’s francophone artists. Until Saturday.
The Défilé St Jean will depart from Molson and Rachel at 1:30pm on Monday, heading towards Maisonneuve Park, where an evening concert kicks off at 8pm, MC’ed by Pierre-Yves Lord with performances by Roxane Bruneau, Patsy Gallant and FouKi, among others.
Alix Sobler’s award-winning play about the devastating Triangle Shirtwaist fire gets a Yiddish-language premiere this weekend at the Segal Centre. The Great Divide looks at the infamous Manhattan sweatshop and draws a line to working conditions today. One Saturday in 1911, a fire in the unsafe factory killed 146 people, mostly young immigrant women, many of whom spoke Yiddish. The shocking tragedy laid the groundwork for labour activists to rally for safer working conditions. The Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre production opens Sunday at 2pm, running until June 30. Before the matinee, I will host a talk with the show’s translators, Sunday at 11am. Join us! We’ll have coffee and rugelach, and it’s free.
There are three more performances of Mélissa Cardona’s Lili St-Cyr, a biographical musical about the famous burlesque dancer who spent time in Montreal at the Gayety Theatre, winning fans and critics alike. At Théàtre du Nouveau Monde until Saturday.
The Montreal Chamber Music Festival continues: Violinist James Ehnes and his Quartet perform Beethoven a la russe, Salle Bourgie Friday 7:30pm. Beethoven’s viola compositions will get an airing Saturday, 7:30pm. And then on Sunday, an epic homage to Bach: artistic director Denis Brott will preside over an all-star team to perform all six of Bach’s Brandenburg concerts, Sunday 3:30pm at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier. The Festival concludes Sunday.
Friday music picks: Country duo Brooks & Dunn at the Bell Centre, 7pm. Two folk-rock duos from Down Under at Place des Arts: Sydney natives and siblings Angus and Julia Stone bring the Living Room Sessions tour to Theatre Maisonneuve, 7:30pm, and Melbourne’s Teskey Brothers, with openers Trousdale, to Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, 8pm.
Saturday’s music picks: Charlton Kenneth Jeffrey Howard aka rapper The Kid LAROI at Place Bell, 7:30pm. Christian rockers Skillet at Beanfield theatre. Doom metal band Pallbearer at Fairmount Theatre, 8pm.
Sunday’s music picks: Brooklyn sax-and-drum trio Moon Hooch at Le Studio TD, 8pm. Senegalese singer Pape Diouf and the Conscious Generation at L’Olympia, 7pm.
Écomusée du fier monde hosts Festival de Mosaïque: Poèmes de Verre, an art exhibit assembling pieces in mosaic form from 30 artists from around the province including the Gazette’s Susan Semenak.The vernissage is Friday, 5 to 9pm, with two workshops on Saturday and Sunday. The show continues to Sunday.
Nine stars in 90 minutes at The Comedy Nest, with comedians like Heidi Foss, Joey Elias, Daniel Carin, Gino Durante and more. Friday and Saturday, 8 and 10:30pm.
Montreal Improv in St Henri hosts a medley of shows, including Troubadour, with scenes inspired by live music performed by singer-songwriter JC Pigeon, Friday 9:30pm.
At burlesque headquarters The Wiggle Room, host and owner Frenchy Jones presents two soirées: Rockabilly Burlesque, Friday, 9pm, with Jolie Lolita, Zyra Lee Vanity and Wild D’Lilah. The, a pop showdown: David Bowie vs. Prince Burlesque, with Sugar Vixen, Yaya Havana, Holly Von Sin and Zyra Lee Vanity, Saturday, 9pm
ONGOING EVENTS
Normand Brathwaite’s New Orleans Blues begins an extended run at the Studio-Cabaret at Espace St Denis. The live show is an homage to the city’s famously musical French quarter, anchored by immersive projections and a Cajun menu designed by Chef Paul Toussaint. Until September 1.
Cirque du soleil’s steampunk extravaganza Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities is back! Step into the Seeker’s wondrous, funny world, filled with contortionists and acrobats! Kurios is at the Big Top in Old Montreal until August 25.
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, the daylilies are starting to bloom, while the clematis are flowering and the peonies are reaching the end of their blooms. Check out the other blooms of the week here.
Nearby, the Montreal Planetarium’s new show imagines what human life could like on Mars.. in 2100! With help from NASA aerospace engineer Farah Alibay and celebrated troupe Cirque Éloize, ROUGE 2100 explores the environment of the red planet as well as what astronauts would need to survive. You’ll have the A-I bot Felicity 87, to take you through the immersive exhibit.
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.