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.
The Old Port hosts Canada Day festivities at the Clock Tower Quay on Monday, starting with a salute fired by the Canadian Armed Forces, at 1:30pm and a citizenship ceremony at 2pm. At 3pm, kids can enjoy inflatable games and facepaint. First Nations group Kina8at holds a talking stick workshop for kids, as well. DJ Hools performs 8 to 10pm, with a round of fireworks at 10pm to round out the festivities.
Over 300 shows await you at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. See local sonstress Dawn Tyler Watson performs a tribute to Dinah Washignton, Upstairs Jazz Bar, Friday 7pm. New Orleans hallmark Preservation Hall Jazz Band perform Friday, 8pm at Théâtre Maisonneuve. Thai-born drummer Salin is outdoors at the Rio Tinto Stage, Friday 8 and 10pm. Kid Koala performs his family-friendly odyssey The Storyville Mosquito at various times at Cinquème Salle, 8pm. Michelle Sweeney & The Gospel Tribe host a gospel brunch at Le Balcon, Saturday 12:30pm. Rising singer Dominique Fils-Aimé perform outdoors at the TD Stage, 9:30pm Saturday. André 3000 of Outkast fame plays his flute album, New Blue Sun LIVE at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, 7:30pm Sunday. Stamp star and sensational singer Elisapie Isaac takes over Théâtre Maisonneuve. And during the day and early evening throughout the weekend, catch ambulatory performances by groups like Urban Science Brass Band, Montreal Dixie, Uplift514 Block Party, Les Royal Pickles, Swing Tonique Jazz Band and Lucky Chemistry. Jazz Fest continues to July 6.
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. The Museum also holds an introductory workshop on Iroquois pottery, 10:30 to 3pm on Saturday.
Waitress The Musical is the French-language premiere of the sweet-as-pie movie and very successful, Tony-nominated stage show. Marie-Eve Janvier stars as Jenna, a waitress in a small town who is in a loveless marriage and has given up on her dreams. With help from fellow servers (Julie Ringuette and Sharon James) and friends, she re-ignites her passion for pastry! Hit singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles penned the music and lyrics, and Jessie Nelson wrote the book. Until July 28 at Espace St Denis.
Alix Sobler’s award-winning play about the devastating Triangle Shirtwaist fire is being performed for the first time in Yiddish 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 has two more shows, Sunday at 2 and 8pm.
Theatre Fairmount in Mile End hosts a couple of dance parties, including Broadway Rave, a musical theatre dance party, Friday, 10pm, an ‘throwback electropop’ Levels House Party, with tunes from Kesha, Kid Cudi, LMFAO and the like, Saturday, 10pm. Singaporean DJ Inquisitive makes his Montreal debut with The Oriental Tour, Sunday 10:30pm.
The sharp Andy Hendrickson (The Late Show, Late Late Show, 30 Rock) headlines at The Comedy Nest, with comedians like Sereg Meletian, Cassie Cao, Sylvain Larocque and more. Friday and Saturday, 8 and 10:30pm.
Montreal Improv in St Henri hosts a medley of shows, including Make It A Musical, where improvisers turn an existing movie into..a musical! Saturday 8pm.
At burlesque headquarters The Wiggle Room, host and owner Frenchy Jones presents two soirées: Planet Boob: Sci-Fi Burlesque with The Lady Josephine, SugarPuss, Minx Arcana and Eva Von Lips, Friday, 9pm. And the venue will capitalize on the big music festival down the street, with All That Jazz! An Evening of Live Jazz Vocals and Burlesque, with performers The Foxy Lexxi Brown, BonBon Bombay, Erockfor and Eldritch Mór, Saturday, 9pm
ONGOING EVENTS
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.
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 catalpas are reaching 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, on now at the First Nations Garden.
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.