FESTIVALS ADAPT TO THE TIMES
From music to visual art and theatre, these events have been reimagined for life during a pandemic
The show must go online.
Faced with cancellation under COVID -19, Montreal festivals are reinventing themselves for the reality of a pandemic.
While heavy hitters such as the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Les Francos and Osheaga are off the radar until further notice, several smaller-scale events are offering a panoply of virtual entertainment options, beginning this weekend.
POP MONTREAL
POP Montreal officially takes place in September, but our city’s premier indie music (and stuff ) extravaganza is getting a jump on things with something called Le Funhouse.
Running Friday to Sunday, the event brings together live music, contemporary art, fashion, artisans, films, panel discussions and workshops on multiple online platforms, all accessible through popmontreal.com.
“We were initially planning to do a Rialto Theatre takeover (before the lockdown) — a sort of mini-pop Montreal multidisciplinary event,” festival director Dan Seligman said. “With the COVID -19 situation, we quickly had to decide to either 100 per cent cancel it or try to navigate onto a virtual platform.”
At Le Funhouse, visitors can navigate between sets by mostly local music acts, including
Leif Vollebekk (streaming live from the Rialto on Sunday), Lydia Képinski, Land of Talk’s Elizabeth Powell and a party by Toronto LGBTQ collective Club Quarantine; and take in art by UQAM students, poetry classes, a drag makeup workshop, or a screening of the zombie classic Night of the Living Dead with live soundtrack by Yamantaka // Sonic Titan.
“It’s like what usual POP Montreal programming would be — eclectic and diverse, but all smushed into a virtual world,” Seligman said. “Depending how things play out, it could be a trial run in case we’re forced to go virtual in September.”
FOIRE PAPIER
In little over a decade, the Papier Art Fair — a.k.a. Foire Papier — has become a reference in the visual arts world. When the lockdown was announced, organizers initially rescheduled the event from late April to late June, before realizing a real-life art fair was simply not in the cards this summer.
Papier’s 13th edition runs Thursday to June 21 at papiermontreal.com. Bringing together 44 galleries from across the country (half from Montreal), organizers hope to bring a gust of hope — and some welcome business — to the visual arts scene.
A new augmented-reality phone app, Collecting — the App, allows users to see how artworks would look in their homes. There’s also an educational program of 10 talks and panel discussions, on Facebook Live or Zoom.
“We wanted it to be more than just a typical website experience,” Papier representative Simone Rochon said. Visitors will be able to view a layout of the virtual fair and peruse the booths of different galleries in clusters, “like walking through the physical fair.”
A big test of this online edition will be how sales measure up. Last year Papier brought in a record $1.5 million for participating galleries, compared to $1.2 million the year before.
MONTREAL FRINGE FESTIVAL
Meanwhile, the Montreal Fringe Festival is just trying to figure out how to co-ordinate an online beer tent. The indie theatre institution was all set to celebrate its 30th anniversary this year. That’s been pushed back to 2021, but this year isn’t a total writeoff: This Is Not a Fringe Festival takes place from June 11 to 21 at montrealfringe.ca.
“I think for so many folks, the Fringe has been this beacon of light in hard times,” festival director Amy Blackmore said. “It’s a real, strong, community-based arts festival.
“We thought, ‘We just can’t abandon our community.’ We wanted to engage in different ways.”
This year’s non-fringe promises “11 days of online and socially distant art, including theatre, dance, music, magic, storytelling and activities for kids.”
The Signature Series includes everything from Zoom hangouts and games to Crowd Karaoke with Sherwin Tjia, lip-synch bingo and Smut Slam, a dirty storytelling open mic.
Minifringe features activities for kids. And the Transformation Series includes panel discussions about making art under COVID -19 and beyond, facilitated by Blackmore.
“I’m just really excited,” she said of the lineup. “It’s nice to do something to celebrate, and to still rally together.”
SUONI PER IL POPOLO
Put on by Mauro Pezzente and Kiva Stimac, the good folks behind indie institutions Casa del Popolo, La Sala Rossa and La Vitrola, Suoni Per Il Popolo is as adventurous as music festivals come.
With their 20th edition in jeopardy, organizers got to thinking.
“We were still getting our funding from arts councils, and we didn’t want to cancel the festival and not be able to pay the artists we had invited,” Stimac said.
The virtual edition of Suoni Per Il Popolo runs from Saturday to June 20 at suoniperilpopolo.org.
The event will feature performances by local acts, including trans rapper Backxwash, saxophonist Yves Charuest, trans electro artist Deidre, avant-garde string quartet Quatuor Bozzini, drag artist BIG SISSY, Radwan Ghazi Moumneh’s new band Enters and a DJ set by Marie Davidson.
“We present music that’s outside the norms of the music industry,” Stimac said, “music that’s testing boundaries or thought-provoking, or sometimes just pure joy.”
Events with some of the international acts originally booked for the festival are being planned for later this year, though what shape those will take depends on the evolution of the pandemic.
“For now we’re just taking it one day at a time,” Stimac said.