Here are my choice Montreal arts and culture highlights for the second half of December 2019:
MUSIC
Montreal-born, L.A.-based music legend Andy Kim found fame when he wrote How’d We Ever Get This Way?, the first of nine Billboard Top 40 hits, including the No. 1 songs Rock Me Gently and Sugar, Sugar. Kim headlines his sixth annual Andy Kim Christmas charity concert in Montreal at the Theatre Jean-Duceppe of Place des Arts, benefitting the Starlight Children’s Foundation, with musical guests Men Without Hats, Tom Cochrane, Ron Sexsmith and Jake Clemons.
“Montreal was the best place for me to grow up,” told me recently. “My earlier years were on Saint-Denis and De Castelnau, it was a real community. You knew your neighbours. That’s what I loved so much about the city. I grew up understanding community, love, caring for each other. That’s what I remember. I never saw a community like that again after I left Montreal. But everywhere I go in the world, I am a Montrealer.”
Kim’s 1969 global No. 1 smash hit Sugar, Sugar by The Archies turns 50 this year and has been named one of Billboard’s “Greatest Songs of All Time.”
Kim recalls how the song was composed: “There was a call from Don Kirshner – to a lot of people, I’m sure – to all the songwriters in the (Brill Building) stable: do you have a song for The Archies? And I was a recipient of that call. In 10 minutes, my mentor and songwriting partner Jeff Barry and I came up with this song without thinking. In my life, thinking is the worst possible way to come up with a song. You are either inspired by something or God’s angels drop it into your life!”
Kim and his guests will sing Sugar, Sugar at the Montreal charity concert on December 13.
Over at Bourgie Concert Hall at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, the hugely popular annual A Charlie Brown Christmas presents the Taurey Butler Trio performing the classic Peanuts soundtrack live (originally scored and recorded by the Vince Guaraldi Trio in 1965), in two one-hour concerts, December 19 at 6 and 8:30 pm.
THEATRE
Puppet mastermind Ronnie Burkett’s critically-hailed Little Dickens show starring the R-rated (for ages 16+) Daisy Theatre gang (pictured at top) in a naughty remix of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has been extended to December 21.
When I recently told Burkett that Little Dickens is quickly becoming a beloved holiday classic, he replied, “It’s so much fun because everybody loves A Christmas Carol, there are a gazillion versions of it, most regional theatres have their own version, but to see Esmé Massengill as Scrooge and to see Schnitzel as Tiny Tim, it’s pretty joyful in a filthy adult kind of way.”
Where did your Burkett’s aging diva movie star character Esmé Massengill come from?
“Massengill was a douche that was advertised on TV when I was a kid! Esmé Massengill is all the clichés that the gay boys love. She is Carol Burnett, Gloria Swanson, everything that little gay Ronnie loved.”
Little Dickens continues at the Centaur Theatre until December 21.
DANCE
Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal’s timeless adaptation of La Casse-Noisette (a.k.a. The Nutcracker) by Quebec choreographer Fernand Nault returns to Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier for its 56th year. This two-act ballet based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s classic tale is set to the music of Tchaikovsky and brings together more than 60 dancers and 100 extras, plus the Orchestre des Grands ballets Canadiens de Montréal under the baton of conductor Dina Gilbert. If you have never seen it, this famed production is a must. The Nutcracker runs from December 12 to 30.
ART AND MUSEUMS
The British Museum exhibition Egyptian Mummies: Exploring Ancient Lives makes its North American premiere at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts. Combining art and cutting-edge technology with more than 200 items from the British Museum’s renowned Egyptian collection, this exhibition reconstructs the lives of six Egyptians who lived along the Nile from about 900 BC to AD 180. The exhibition runs to February 2.
The MMFA exhibition “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you”draws its title from Walt Whitman’s celebrated 1881 poem Song of Myself, and displays more than 100 paintings, photographs, sculptures and works on paper from different time periods and cultures,allfrom the extraordinary art collection of renowned Ontario art collector and patron W. Bruce C. Bailey. Some of the artists included in this exceptional exhibition are Francisco José de Goya, Rembrandt, Richard Avedon, Robert Mapplethorpe and Kent Monkman. The exhibition runs toMarch 29.
Montreal designer Jean-Claude Poitras – who left his mark on prêt-à-porter over the course of a prolific career that began in 1972 – gets the career retrospective treatment in the Jean-Claude Poitras: Fashion and Inspiration exhibition at the McCord Museum. The exhibition runs to April 26.
Discover one of the world’s great and mysterious civilizations in the blockbuster The Incas, Treasures of Peru exhibition at the Pointe-à-Callière Montréal Archaeology and History Complex. While their domination lasted less than a century (from 1450 to 1532), the Incas built one of the most spectacular empires the world has known, spreading from Ecuador to Peru, Bolivia and half of present-day Chile. This exhibition explores the world of the Incas and Andean culture – mainly that of Peru – from prehistory to the contemporary era, and features nearly 300 pieces including eye-popping gold and silver work, ornaments, jewelry, vases, clothing, funerary masks and ritual objects. The exhibition runs to April 13.
FILM
Director Terrence Malick’s nearly three-hour long film A Hidden Life was inspired by the true story of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer caught between his deepest convictions and the desire to protect his family, and who risked capital punishment when he refused to pledge allegiance to Hitler during World War II. The multi-lingual film (showing with French subtitles) opens at Cinéma du Parc on December 20.
VARIOUS
The unique Imagine Van Gogh exhibition at the Arsenal Contemporary Art Centre in Griffintown projects 200 paintings by the artist on “out of the ordinary” 3D shapes, offering different angles from which to discover Van Gogh’s work. The exhibition runs to February 2.
RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Naomi Smalls headlines her Jingle Belles Christmas show at Cabaret Mado on December 19 with special guest, Montreal drag icon Manny and the House of Manny.
Comedy fans will love the Holiday Double Feature with Montreal comedy legends Joey Elias and Derek Seguin at Café Cléopatra – a showbar since 1893 and the last hold-out from Montréal’s fabled Sin City-era red-light district – on December 15.
Also at Cleo’s, enjoy risqué entertainers at the Candyass Christmas Spectacle with burlesque queen Velma Candyass on December 20. Cleo’s classic cabaret space is on the second floor, above their first-floor strip joint.
The all-new Cirque du Soleil – Axel show fuses world-class ice skating with breathtaking acrobatics for 18 performances at the Bell Centre from December 19 to 29.
