La La La Human Steps dance the distance in Amjad

Can art overshadow a hoppin' party? It's a tough call with the new Battat Contemporary (#100-7245 Alexandra), but Allison Katz's Ruthless in Chalk Farm just might do the job, 6 p.m., to June 13. There's nothin' like the ladies of NYC: Freestanding Productions presents John Patrick Shanley's witty Women of Manhattan: An Upper West Side Story, 8 p.m. at 4324 St-Laurent, to May 2. Norman, a homage to the genius of Norman McLaren, merges film and theatre through innovative technologies and Peter Trosztmer's performance, at Cinquième Salle (Place des Arts), to May 9. And Danse Danse throws a La La La Human Steps party of breathtaking proportions with Édouard Lock's exquisite Amjad, to May 2 only, at Place des Arts.

FRIDAY 1

The Elektra Festival (www.elektrafestival.ca) begins two-weeks of mayhem starting at 6 p.m. at Articule (262 Fairmount W.) with Ken Gregory's electromechanical installation Wind Coil Sound Flow; at 7:30 p.m. at Centrale Galerie Powerhouse (4296 St-Laurent Blvd.), Mouna Andraos' Power Cart project revs up to take to the streets. May is a month of many things, among them: anarchy! The Festival of Anarchy begins with a demonstration against capitalism (well, of course!) at Parc Cabot (Atwater and Ste-Catherine) - see anarchistbookfair.ca for more. Award-winning Iranian-Canadian photographer Babak Salari launches his provocative new book, Remembering the People of Afghanistan, at Mekic Gallery (4438 De la Roche), 7 p.m. The Montreal Chamber Music Festival boosts its rock factor with Courtney Wing, hot opera collective Liederwolfe, violinist Marc Djokic and percussionist Anne-Julie Caron, at La Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent Blvd.), 9 p.m., $10. For full festival schedule, see www.festivalmontreal.org.

SATURDAY 2

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (1920 Baile) celebrates its anniversary with 20 Years: 20 Hours, starting at 11 a.m. as CCA director Mirko Zardini talks with MOMA architecture curator Barry Bergdoll, followed by an afternoon of tours, events and architecture films. In the courtyard: Bilboquet ice cream, a BBQ and music well into the evening. The Indyish Monthly Mess brings the Darling Demaes, David Ryshpan, Kalmunity Vibe Collective and more to Chat Bleu (435 Beaubien W.). Oboro's 25th anniversary celebrations come to a close at 3 p.m. in Lafontaine Park with a tree planting. Get loud-country with John Doe (of X), The Sadies and Lake Of Stew, 9 p.m. at Il Motore (179 Jean-Talon W.). And it's May-Day, a multidisciplinary carnival of art, performances and music at Eastern Bloc (7240 Clark), 9 p.m.

SUNDAY 3

Insomniac Press launches Selected Blackouts by John Goldbach, a short-story collection of sex-and-mental-meltdowns and probably a little existential angst thrown in for fun, at Blizzarts (3956A St. Laurent), 9 p.m. Catch a back-to-back Sunday theatre matinée (or just one play if you're not of the theatre hardcore-elite) as Gleams Theatre continues its run of two plays that tread both sides of that all-important line between funny and dramatic: Woody Allen's Riverside Drive and Mike Bartlett's My Child, to May 10 at Mainline Theatre (3997 St-Laurent Blvd.). And peer into the secret lives of designers, architects, graphic artists and others as they open their doors all weekend long as part of the Design Montreal Open House - see designmontreal.com for full listing.

MONDAY 4

Shilin Hora, Montreal printmaker, painter and founder of Growstudio, invites all quilters, green-thumbs and otherwise-interested parties to the collaborative art of building a 8-foot-by-6-foot Seed Quilt, this evening at Gallery Sho.dan (425 René-Lévesque W.) to May 27 (with seed gathering on May 2, 1:30 p.m. at Westmount Park) - see www.growstudio.org for all the info. Concordia's CJLO 1690 AM prove their continued virility with an anniversary show featuring the likes of heavy, epic Mastodon, plus Kylesa and Intronaut, at Le National (1220 Ste-Catherine E.). And Teenanger, DCT and wacked-out Swamp Sex Robots play L'Escogriffe (4467a St-Denis).

TUESDAY 5

Amy Drover's Hearts & Smarts stitches a whole lotta love onto a whole lotta fabric - her humorous, endearing and smartypants fibre-art will be at Monastiraki (5478 St-Laurent Blvd.) to May 31, opening tonight at 5 p.m. Nicholas Voeikoff-Erens mashes together, in his own unique and canvas-free way, Montreal media images to encapsulate our urban culture - 6 p.m. at Montauk Sofa (4404 St-Laurent Blvd.). As part of the Elektra Festival, climb inside Alexis O'Hara's SQUEEEEQUE! a.k.a. the Improbable Igloo - a sculptural instrument of sound (and possible home for small mammals) built of speakers - at Skol (#314-372 Ste-Catherine W.). BNL MTL opens its Porous Lab for cutting-edge game demos and other digital culture phenomena with Lynn Hughes and Bart Simon, and at 2 p.m. Brett Gaylor, director of RIP: Remix Manifesto, holds a workshop - at École Bourget (1230 De la Montagne) - BNL MTL runs all month: see www.biennalemontreal.org.

WEDNESDAY 6

Painter, filmmaker and performance artist Kent Monkman's video installation Dance to the Berdashe reinterprets 19th-century artist George Catlin's paintings of the same name - but Monkman's vision of the traditional aboriginal ritual featuring a gender-bending male figure is by far less appalling - at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1380 Sherbrooke W.), to Oct. 4. As part of Studio XX's Wired Women Salon #72, go behind-the-scenes of Online Performance-Apparitions (desfasado.net) to explore stereotypes, imagination and the reality of Montreal immigration, with performance artist Helena Martin Franco (Cœur déphasé) and visual artist Andrée Anne Vien (Les Lieux invisibles), 6 p.m. at #401-6545 Durocher. And The Kills, The Horrors and Magic Wands (thrown in for good anti-terrifying-band-name measure, I guess) are at La Tulipe (4530 Papineau).
 
 

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A comment.     Thursday April 30th 2009. A sad day for media in Montreal and Quebec. In a stunningly abrupt ( though supposedly unsurprising move ) ICI publishes its last weekly paper. While to some this may be a hallmark of the future, it certainly does not bode well for others. With the stuttering last year of the TQS newsroom, there is one less voice out there. Another viewpoint that has dissipated into the air. As someone who is fortunate enough to be able to read both official languages and who cannot read enough, it is sad to see ICI go. The right wing National Post, the nationalist La Presse, the right of center local english daily, Hour, Mirror, etc. rserve to provide to those reading, a more rounded persepective on events. Whether they be local issues, music, film, restaurants, arts - they inform us with their differing opinions and various approaches to the subject matters. A necessary methodology by which to better underdstand current events. Now I have no idea about where Voir/Hour are within there financial situations ( only that Voir seems to have about a 500, 00 level of readership...), but I would be lying if i were to not state a deep level of concern. The daily news cycle is a multifaceted prism. To understand the thing and events that surround us, these sources of information, criticism, opinions and facts are important for sociaty at large. Here's hoping to a long life to the Hour and its brethern.
Reuven De Souza		May 1st, 2009

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