Thursday, February 7, 2008

Community artist Diane Trépanière hosts members of Herstreet/La rue des Femmes de Montréal and l’Arrêt-Source, who will be showing their writing and photographs.

Women at risk need dreams and beauty too. There are numerous organizations well placed to meet their physical and psychological needs, so Les Filles électriques wanted to complement the existing services with opportunities to create art. For three years, we have been working towards that goal with Diane Trépanière. Thanks to her commitment of time and generosity we have been able to publish two wonderful books in partnership with women’s shelters. The books are Écrire et sans pitié (Éditions du Passage, 2006) with l’Arrêt-source, and ABCd’art de La rue des Femmes (Remue-ménage, 2007), with Herstreet/La rue des Femmes de Montréal.

Diane Trépanière is a multidisciplinary artist. Trained in photography, she has exhibited in numerous collective shows, as well as mounting four solo exhibitions. In 1999, she created a photographic installation in memory of the fourteen victims of the Polytechnique tragedy, and in 2000, for the World March of Women, she created another memorial in Montreal’s Émilie-Gamelin park. She has published Des pas sur l’ombre (Remue-ménage, 2004), a collection of texts by community shelter workers. Her work has been shown in artist-run centres, galleries and Maisons de la culture in Quebec. For several years, she has been conducting photography and writing workshops at Herstreet/La rue des Femmes de Montréal and writing workshops at l’Arrêt —Source.

Since its founding in 1994, Herstreet/La rue des Femmes de Montréal has been welcoming homeless women at risk, and helping them through the process of healing and regaining power over their lives. The organization privileges creative expression as a means of social reconstruction and inclusion.

Besides offering a bed, food and physical security to young women between the ages of 18 and 30, L’Arrêt-Source provides coaching and support for up to two years.

In French. Jonathan Parant, Alexandre St-Onge and Alexander Wilson have years of experience, play with a wide range of groups, and are known for their originality and disciplined approach. But when it comes time to describe them, they’re a bit enigmatic! Apparently it’s in the cards: one medium is not enough for the members of K.A.N.T.N.A.G.A.N.O. They play with the matter of being, then flow with the irreversible in the triumphant return of the venerable Gilles Robert. Hmm. Gilles Robert is their guest of honour. Smells a lot like pseudonym to us!

In French. Six minutes. No right of reply. You’re really going to get a piece of their mind. Every year we have to cram a few more chairs into the Sala to accommodate the crowds. Our combat against the cliché has become something of a cult event. Jacques Bertrand, head honcho of Macadam Tribu, will once again host all you people out there who are sick to death of the loop of boneheaded waffling we hear in the public square. And you’re not going to take it anymore!

Wafflers, prepare to bite the dust! With Brigitte Haentjens (passionately engaged stage director), René-Daniel Dubois (playwright/never at a loss for words), Jean-Marc Massie (voluble storyteller: we’ve got a shot clock with his name on it), Geneviève Rochette

(actor/humorist/not averse to a bit of gossip), Marie-Louise Arsenault (journalist/no minced words), Serge Bouchard (strangest of anthropologists), Louis Champagne (actor/sociable tavern-dweller), Evelyne de la Chenelière (playwright/keen observer of humans), Queen KA (young slammer with quite a mouth on her), and Mado Lamotte (queen of kitsch — an unusual guest for the FVA, huh? Don’t we know it.)

We’re hoping to avoid an audience KO, so we asked musical referees Fred Fortin, Olivier Langevin and Robbie Kuster to step in if it goes too long. And host Jacques Bertrand? Phlegmatic, sarcastic as ever, he’s moved up a weight category. In the office, we’re calling him “Steak”.

Open mic, bilingual.