Shows at La Sala Rossa

In French. After listening to countless kilometres of magnetic tape and old vinyl, and long hours choosing, sampling, processing and remixing the sounds, musician Martin Tétreault brings us the voices of yesterday emerging from the past in a way that is both touching and irreverent. The words of Miron, Langevin, Garneau, Savard, Desbiens and others meet and come alive in varying declensions and declinations, while Tétreault - at his skilful, mischievous best here — mixes acoustic and electronic tunes, with a little folklore and familiar tunes thrown in. “I hear voices,” he tells us… “but also sounds.”

With the help of Julien Roy, Martin Tétreault presents “live on stage” a dialogue between poetry and music mixed with three audio clips by Diane Labrosse, Anne-Françoise Jacques and Aimé Dontigny. As a bonus, we’ll see some magnificent projections from L’œil de verre, the new duo of artists Jean-Benoit Pouliot and Carl Fortin.

In part two of this musical evening, Gatineau will take the stage (after jamming with Martin Tétreault) to move us into party mode! Gatineau is no freak show, still less an Ottawa Valley band. They are a thoroughly Montreal, one-of-a-kind duo, dealing in “progressive spoken word”. With the voices of SEBA/mcBrutalll (Éric Brousseau) and music by Sugartech (Jean-Sébastien Cyr), Gatineau borrows equally from hip hop and electroacoustics. On February 3, the duo will be joined by Burne Mac Pherson (Jean-Sébastien Nicol) on drums and DeMhamel (Dominic Hamel) on machines and noise processor. Look out! The Sala will be shaking!

In English. The mainstage anglo show at the Sala Rossa this year could stand alone as a major draw for anyone curious about the Canadian poetry scene. Toronto’s top bad boys and girls will join up in Montreal to give us a show worthy of the counter-culture’s best. The 1950s had their Kerouacs, Ginsbergs and Burroughs. We have our own brand of deliciously marginal artists.

Bill Bissett (iconoclastic poet), Naila Keleta Mae (interdisciplinary artist, charismatic stage performer, and one of the discoveries at the 2004 FVA), Dwayne Morgan (poet, organizer, winner of best spoken word album at the Canadian Urban Music Awards in 2003), Jill Battson (poetry activist, initiator of numerous events), Robert Priest (a dozen poetry collections and several prizes in a back pocket), and the young Spin (of the Dub Poets Collective of Toronto) will be the guests of the warm and dynamic Andrea Thompson (poet and radio host for poetry programming on CiTr radio and Bravo!TV). A one-of-a-kind evening with — watch for it! — some quiet humour that just might help us shake off those nasty prejudices against our Toronto partners-in-poetry!

In French. Drop that comfortable paper and pencil, my dear — your publisher wants you to give it up for the FVA! They opened their doors a mere five years ago, but the publishing house Le Quartanier, with its penchant for experimental, over-the-top writing, has already made a place for itself in Quebec’s poetry scene. In 2006, two Le Quartanier authors won major awards: Renée Gagnon took the 2005 Émile-Nelligan Prize for her poetry collection Des fois que je tombe, and Hervé Bouchard won the 2006 Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal for his novel Parents et amis sont invités à y assister.

Hallalou! is a live-action show, with no master of ceremonies, where you’ll hear writers Dauphin Vincent, Christian Larouche, Hervé Bouchard, Patrick Poulin, Philippe Charron, Alain Farah, and Renée Gagnon, accompanied by choreographer Karine Denault. It’s also a good place to discover French performance poets who have travelled to Quebec for that very reason. See the audacious and imposing Julien d’Abrigeon, and the mix of voice and re-purposed sound from interdisciplinary artist Thomas Braichet.

The performance space itself will come alive, as visual artists James Paterson (a collaborator with Björk and Mick Jagger, among others) and Christian Bélanger (winner of several prizes in graphic design) project some of their work on stage.

Frank Martel is more than the beating heart of Cheval Blanc breweries! He is also a poet-performer, theremin player, and Yé-Yi-You-Ya is his third album. He was named “sacré talent 2004” by the Chaîne culturelle of Radio-Canada. It’s rumoured he’s the spiritual big brother of Urbain Desbois, with whom he shares a love of words, off-the-wall stories and country-folk music. YÉ-YI-YOU-YA is on that wonderful small label Monsieur Fauteux m’entendez-vous? (the same that took such good care of the Band de poètes and Le Silence des hommes by D.Kimm/Falaise). Together with L’Ouest céleste (Eloi Deit and Bernard Falaise), Frank Martel will be launched in grand style at the FVA!

And that’s only the beginning. After accompanying Martel on guitar, Bernard Falaise will come out singing — his own songs! You already know him as an incomparable guitar player (Miriodor, Klaxon Gueule, Les Projectionnistes, FoodSoon), accompanist (Marie-Jo Thério), composer (Bozzini Quartet, Pentaèdre Ensemble, Quasar), and producer (Jorane, Marie-Jo Thério, Frank Martel, D.Kimm). Now see him in Vache que veut vole. He’ll be accompanied by his old pals, pianist François Lafontaine (Karkwa, Galaxie 500), drummer Rémi Leclerc (Miriodor, Les Projectionnistes), bass player Patrick Hamilton, and sound manipulator Alexandre St-Onge. Just one more facet of Falaise to discover!

In French. Six minutes. No right of reply. They’ve come to say their piece. Every year, we have to push the walls of the Sala Rossa just a little farther out to accommodate all the people who want to see Combat contre la langue de bois. This year, it’s Round Three, and “necessary” is the word on everyone’s lips to describe what has become a genuine cult. Your host once again will be Jacques Bertrand, the great manitou of Macadam Tribu. It’s an evening designed for anyone who’s just a little tired (read, fed up!) with hearing those same old clichés being rolled out yet again in what passes for public space.

Our guests will have all that political waffling and pontificating writhing in the dust! Dinu Bumbaru (city planner and the voice of Heritage Montreal), Stéphane Crête (man of theatre, television… and experimentation), Nathalie Derome (the impudent performer with the well-hung tongue), Richard Desjardins (not one to mince words, you know who we mean), Monique Giroux (host and friend to song-shapers, her own sweet voice has no problem getting off a good volley when required), Micheline Lanctôt (actor and director with the instantly recognizable smoky voice and frank opinions), Robert Morin (independent — and we do mean independent — filmmaker), Maxime-Olivier Moutier (writer and unswervable observer of human behaviour), Ginette Noiseux (woman of the theatre, politically engaged, intense), and Denis Rainville (singer with Les Ours, the one with the sign: “May Bite!”). Just so we don’t KO any audience members, our musical referees Fred Fortin, Dan Thouin and Robbie Kuster will have a sock ready for anyone who goes on too long! Host Jacques Bertrand? Phlegmatic and sarcastic as ever.

In French. Year after year, Richard Desjardins engages with the world, well beyond his career as a singer-songwriter. With co-director Robert Monderie (Forest Alert, Mouche à feu, Comme des chiens en pacage), he has just made a documentary looking at the Algonquin people who, 6,000 years ago, inhabited an enormous territory and who now live in often deplorable conditions. The film is now at the editing stage, and the film, titled Le Peuple invisible, is expected out later this year. On February 8, in the warmth of the Sala Rossa, Richard Desjardins will give us the rare gift of telling us about his work in making the film. The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions — who knows, maybe even influence his thinking… hmm.

Part two of this very special evening will see Desjardins perform — for only the second time in Quebec, his monologue Aliénor inspired by Eleanor of Aquitaine (mother of Richard-the-Lion-Heart). It promises to be an uncommonly good evening, if you’re at all familiar with Desjardins’s powerful portrayals on stage.

Bilingual. Closing event. Hey! No one leaves the room til we bring the roof down one more time! Body and Soul like you’ve never seen it before will be the closing act at the 6th edition of the FVA. Cheeky, you say? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Funny, irreverent, friendly, absurd, warm and completely unhinged, Les Moquettes Coquettes will host an evening where the female of the species unloads all its ying… and yang! On the program are: Giselle Webber, the sizzling singer from the band The Hot Springs, la Numba One will perform a solo. She is disarmingly frank and her charisma is legendary, so prepare yourself to be charmed right out of your tree. And the members of Women with Kitchen Appliances (WWKA), first-time visitors to the Festival, will inject a little incongruity into this high-voltage evening. Identical, interchangeable, disposable and dead serious, WWKA is a sound project, a hardcore kitchen band, a performance collective, improv, intervention, installation, concert, cacophony, recipes and — since the spring of 2004, a kitchen certification service (whew!). And finally, she may be turning over her role as host for the evening, but D.Kimm, Executive and Artistic Director of Les Filles électriques, will still be on hand to give a performance with all the emotion and sensuality we have come to expect from her. And afterwards? Well, there's a wrap party, isn’t there! The girls are all grown up, and they tell us they can DJ too.… Yikes!