Here are my choice Montreal arts and culture highlights for March 2020:
MUSIC
The Montreal concert scene heats up again with American folk-rock band The Lumineers at the Bell Centre (March 6); Italian superstar Eros Ramazzotti at Place Bell on March 9; the Subtronics (March 14) and Keane (March 24) at MTELUS; Dweezil Zappa (March 18) and Matthew Good (March 20) at the Corona Theatre. Alan Doyle, lead singer of Canadian folk rock band Great Big Sea, headlines a solo show at the Olympia Theatre on March 29.
Local shows of note: Onetime La Voix contestant Matt Holubowski headlines MTELUS on March 4, while this year’s edition of the popular A Taste of Tea – Caribbean Tea Party will honour six Black female Montréal doctors with their Woman of Merit Award: The dress-up affair at the Côte Saint-Luc Aquatic and Community Centre on March 8 will feature live performances by soul music legends Skipper Dean and Michelle Sweeney.
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Grammy-winning Maestro Kent Nagano – who is conducting his last full season with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal – leads the OSM in the Music, Fashion and Movement concerts at the Maison symphonique de Montréal on March 27 and 28.
To close its season, Opera McGill joins forces with the McGill Baroque Orchestra and Cappella Antica to perform one of Handel’s most famous works for the stage, Acis and Galatea, at Pollack Hall (March 27 to 29).
DANCE
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, or “Les Trocks” as they are more affectionately known, headline Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier on March 5. The world’s foremost all-male comic ballet company, Les Trocks was founded in September 1974 when the company’s first-ever performance was held in a second storey loft theatre (filled with about 100 folding chairs) on 14th Street in NYC’s meat-packing district.
One of my fave stories about Les Trocks is about the first time the company played a prestigious outdoor festival at the Alhambra, a 14th century Moorish palace in Grenada, Spain, in the mid-1980s: No one told Grenada high society that the NYC dance company was made up of gay men who perfectly parody classical ballet in drag.
“The audience was extremely well-dressed in sequin dresses and jewels and we came out and started the performance and you could see they were all in shock!” Les Trocks artistic director Tory Dobrin (who originally joined the company as a 26-year-old dancer back in 1980) told me. “So they just got up and left! It was a massive exodus! And it wasn’t calmly – they were running!
“It turns out they thought we were Les Ballets of Monte Carlo, not Les Ballets Trockadero! The next night – because, of course, word had gotten out about what had happened – we had the biggest audience we ever had!”
Do not miss Les Trocks in Montreal.
Meanwhile, Nederlands Dans Theater returns to Montreal for their second visit to Danse Danse, the city’s top dance series, at Theatre Maisonneuve from March 10 to 14. This is contemporary dance at its best, and features a piece by acclaimed Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite who was the resident choreographer with Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal from 2001 to 2004.
Also at Theatre Maisonneuve, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal presents Luna from March 19 to 28. Les Grands Ballets says “Luna provides a vision of the human and at what inevitably bonds us, of the energy and power that derive from this. The work presents a triptych of visions with common ground in hope and beauty, a clear-eyed yet optimistic gaze directed at our humanity.”
THEATRE
Don’t miss the world English-language premiere of playwright Catherine-Anne Toupin’s taut psychological thriller Mob, directed by Andrew Shaver, at the Centaur Theatre in Old Montreal from March 3 to 22.
The Segal Centre for Performing Arts continues its current season with the acclaimed musical The Times They Are A Changin’ celebrating great Jewish musical voices of the 1960s – such as Bob Dylan, Mama Cass, Simon and Garfunkel, Carole King and Montreal pop icon Leonard Cohen. The show stars Canadian theatre legend and Tony Award nominee Louise Pitre, and runs from March 1 to 22.
The Broadway blockbuster Cats headlines Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier from March 17 to 22.
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 March 29.
Montréal 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.
The unique Imagine Van Gogh installation 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 installation runs to April 5.
Under the theme “RESET, new start”, the 2020 edition of the Art Souterrain festival transforms the city’s famed Underground Pedestrian Network into a five-kilometre-long contemporary art gallery, displaying the art of 55 local and international artists until March 22.
FILM
The 38th edition of the International Festival of Films on Art – a film festival dedicated to the promotion and distribution of films on art and media arts – will be held in various Montréal venues from March 17 to 29.
Experience James Bond on the big screen accompanied by the power of a full symphony orchestra performing composer David Arnold’s thrilling musical score live and in sync to the picture, when Attila Glatz Productions presents Casino Royale in concert at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier on March 6.
Directed by Thomas Rinfret, the much-anticipated feature-length documentary Mad Dog & The Butcher – Les derniers vilains chronicles the lives of iconic Québec professional wrestlers and brothers Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon and Paul “The Butcher” Vachon. In French and English, with bilingual subtitles, the doc screens on March 6 at Les Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma, the only festival dedicated exclusively to Québec-made films.
Over at the Cinéma du Parc, their nocturnal screening series Parc at Midnight returns Friday and Saturday nights with such classics as Donnie Darko and The House by the Cemetary.
LITERATURE
Renowned Montreal writers H. Nigel Thomas, Horace Goddard and Maguy Métellus co-host Lectures Logos Readings, the monthly bilingual reading series of poetry, fiction and spoken word at the Universal Negro Improvement Association (U.N.I.A. Hall at 2741 Notre Dame St. W.) in Little Burgundy, March 9 from 7 to 9 pm. The guest readers this month are Esmeralda Thornhill, Mike Di Scaflani, Richard Best, Maha El Marraghi, Rosa Pires, Mariana Baldé and David Mézy, followed by an open mic. The event is free, but a small donation is welcome.
And how’s this for a fun literary reading: Stand-up comic Tranna Wintour will host local comedians and actors reading passages from some of the worst celebrity memoirs ever written, at Celebrity Memoirs Gone Wrong hosted by Tranna Wintour! on March 26. Guest readers include Adam Capriolo and Thomas Leblanc.
FAMILY SHOWS
Disney On Ice presents Road Trip Adventures features Toy Story 4, live action Aladdin and The Lion King along with such classic tales and hit cinema releases as Mary Poppins Returns, Frozen and Moana. The multi-media show runs from March 4 to 8 at Place Bell in Laval. Be sure to choose a show performed in the language (English or French) of your choice.
The always-entertaining Harlem Globetrotters (whom I first saw as a child at the Montreal Forum) headline the Bell Centre on March 27 and Place Bell on March 28.
Last but not least, designed entirely in Montreal, the all-new Scooby Doo and The Lost City of Gold headlines Place Bell on March 29. This show brings together cutting-edge technology, music, puppetry and circus arts, magic, songs, dance, aerial arts and interactive videos in a brand-new Scooby Doo mystery.
