| POETRY CURRENTS | |
VOIX D’AMERIQUE (VOICES OF THE AMERICAS)
The major Montreal news is a six day spoken word festival called Voix d’Ameriques (Voices of the Americas), which looks at the spoken and performed word in just about as many ways as you can think of. The festival will run from the 26th of February to the 3rd of March, and will feature the best this part of the country has to offer. Scheduled performers include Catherine Kidd, Debbie Young, Fortner Anderson, Corey Frost, Alexis O’Hara, Kaie Kellough, Alex Boutros & Kaarla Sundstrom and many others, including the best French performers in Quebec, and excellent work by storytellers from Canada's first nations.
Each night is to be divided into three sets of three performers, and each set will have a focus. The curtain will open on dub/hip-hop, theatre, storytelling, poetry and music, solo poets and multimedia. In the afternoons there will be open mics, a slam, round-table discussions, a workshop on voice and other special events. Events will take place at three venues: the Sergent Recruteur Bar, the Sala Rossa and the Casa del Popolo. All three are within a block of each other, just south of St. Joseph Boulevard on Boulevard St. Laurent, the street that divides the eastern half of the city from the west.
If you don’t speak French, you should plan to be there on the 27th of February and/or the 1st of March, as these are the days when the majority of the schedule will be in English. You should also be on hand for the bilingual grand finale on Sunday March 3rd. Look for some big surprises on that last night too, as the festival goes out with a bang! For more information, write to info@wiredonwords.com.
KISS MY CABARET
Before the Voices Festival comes one of the hottest new cabarets in town, “Kiss My Cabaret,” a true cabaret featuring theatre, music, fire-eaters and spoken word (this month from yours truly). The next show takes place on the Saturday the 2nd of February at the Sala Rossa, 4848 St. Laurent at 8 pm. The show was totally sold out before the first act came onstage last time, so get there early.
POETRY & SCULPTURE
If you’re in town this month you might also want to catch a first for me, a collaboration featuring poetry and sculpture. In Pascale Girardin's installation at Galerie 303, thousands of flakes of white porcelain float against a deep red background. This interior snowstorm plays against an audio track of voice and music works by myself, sax player Bryan Highbloom and legendary New York composer/musician Loren MazzaCane Connors. The installation launched last Sunday, January 13th, and will be up until early February. It's at 372 Ste-Catherine West, Suite 303, and you can get more info by calling 514.393.3771 or emailing stud303@aei.ca.
THUNDERING WORD HEARD
Meanwhile I've just come across a whole host of events in Vancouver, including the Thundering Word Heard one-year anniversary bash featuring Ralph Alfonso, Cass King, Mike Absalom, Noelle Pion and Johnny Wisdom, among others. Thundering Word Heard is an excellent words and music cabaret hosted by T. Paul with music by DJ Dutchboy every Sunday night at 8 pm at the Café Montmartre, 4362 Main Street in Vancouver. Admission is free, although they do pass the hat for performers.
TANYA'S TRAVELS
Hats off too to Tanya Evanson, who finished her run at Bukowski’s Tales of Ordinary Madness with a launch party for the Ribsauce anthology of words by women featured in my last column.
Tanya will be travelling in hot places this year, a well-deserved rest for a fine performer. Tales of Ordinary Madness is the longest running spoken word event in Vancouver and will now be produced by Andrea Papineau- Koritar. For more information on this and other events in the city, you can take one last look at the extensive list at Tanya’s MotherTongue Media site before she closes it down for the winter, or visit Steve Duncan's A Week of Words calendar.
That’s it for now. May the words fall off your tongue like crystals of the frozen snow.
