FTA Highlights and Picks
Festival TransAmeriques. 2FIk. La Romance n'est pas morte
Welcome back in-person festivals. The Festival TransAmérique, the FTA, brings international performances to Montreal from around the globe every spring. This year, with the opportunity to capped audiences in the venues, the shows are back. Perhaps the biggest change is that the international talent is far less and the local talent is far more. Since Montreal is rich with dance, theatre, and other performance arts, this year’s festival is no less abundant with choice than it is any other year. 26 shows are featured, online and off. Many feature the work of black, brown, and indigenous artists.
Highlights this year include dancer and choreographer Louise Lecavalier’s solo work, Stations and actor and director’s Marie Brassard’s Violence, which was created in Japan along with Japanese artists. The two well known performers’ shows are, of course, sold out. Wah-wah-wah.
One show to catch is 2Fik’s La romance est pas morte, 2Fik!, which features over 100 characters from the world of dating. Each seeks love, but in their own way. In an app, you can meet them, interact with them, and chat with them. But after that, you can also meet them live in a 7 hour a day performance. 2Fik regularly presents work that examines how identity can be both distinct and yet, at the core, so basically human.
Multipart BOW’T-Tio’tia:ke looks at Montreal’s slave-owning past as 2020 winner of le Grande prix de la danse de Montreal Rhodnie Désir explores the heritage of Afro-descendnat peoples in the Americas. This three part dance work takes place outdoors.
Public/Private Parts ou L’Origine du Monde with choreographer and dancer Gerard X Reyes is a combination of video and performance that examines representations of the body inspired by two years working in Berlin. Attitudes towards nudity, shame, and the voices of both sex workers and sex educators are part of this show.
Aalaapi is a show about the Inuit people of the North, done through the medium of radio and theatre. The production features both Inuit and non-Inuit women exploring the identity and misconceptions about the people who live in the North.
The FTA continues in Montreal from May 26 to June 12. For tickets and information, click HERE
