In the gloom of a world rocking with bombs, the 25the Mois Multi rebels against the ambient grayness and offers a great cry of joy to break through February. Its new offering invites us to dispel the darkness and explore happiness, illuminated by the beacon of art, in a program that counterbalances the heaviness of the time.
Joy, the theme chosen to celebrate the silver anniversary of Mois Multi and its audience, is a happy way to stick out the crises that undermine our time. “We always try to find a theme in response to our times,” explains the curator, Émile Beauchemin. I couldn’t think of anything more subversive than joy. »
It is with this refusal of despondency anchored to the body that the multidisciplinary and electronic arts festival brings together 75 artists this year. Many draw on current precariousness to outline responses to the ills of the world.
In Warm uppresented in 2021 in Montreal, Mykalle Bielinski radically reflects on the concept of decay become necessary in the face of limitless consumption. The artist will pedal to supply his show-performance with energy and thus becomes his own generator, in an exercise that is certainly exhausting, but also meditative.
At a time when the entertainment industry is competing excessively to fill the audience – The Sphere, the new state-of-the-art venue in Las Vegas, alone consumes, during peak periods, the power needed to light and heat 21,000 homes, according to S&P Global Market —, Warm up and its minimalism question the role of the artist in the climate crisis.
Faithful to the saying that shared joy is increased joy, Mois Multi will also invite its public to a banquet to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Shows and flavors will invade the Charpente des fauves, on February 11, to celebrate under the sign of the dragon, the animal of eccentricity and idealism which make up the DNA of the festival.
The now ritual Untamed evening of the Month Multi will culminate this time with a performance that promises to navigate rebellious waters aboard the ship piloted by PE Beaudoin and his crew. Hubert Lenoir, Alexandre Martel, Lou-Adriane Cassidy and Marius Larue will present Doodoodooan instrumental excursion into soundscapes yet to be cleared.
Some proposals will instead delve into the heart of the wounds inflicted by human cruelty, sometimes so deep that they bleed for generations. The Théâtre de l’Impie will notably present Opera for the homelessa descent into the mass graves left in the wake of genocides.
“It’s a questioning of intergenerational trauma, the premise of which is the genocide in Cambodia,” explains the commissioner. It may seem contrary to the theme, but it is a very strong work which speaks of healing and the paths that must be taken throughout this process. »
Joy in 12 places
The joy of Mois Multi will explode in 12 locations and will be exhibited for the very first time at the Musée de la civilization, La Nef and the Beaumont cinema. “It’s really a great strength of our 25 years, the fact of being so tree-like in the city,” rejoices the commissioner. This makes the Multi Month party happen everywhere. »
Art will cover the Saint-Roch district in particular thanks to The suspended space, an artistic journey made visible by augmented reality. This journey, accessible at the end of the telephone, will reveal the works of five artists who appropriate the changing space of the lower town, a sector where a new wealth is settling on the old working-class poverty of the district.
The party will also reach the Web and the four corners of Quebec thanks to Our territories, soundscapes, a choral work signed by Les Incomplètes. This gives voice to teenagers and elders who talk about the sounds that form the fabric of their region. A long-term project that will last until 2026, these “sound postcards” promise to make people hear the lullabies that the environment hums to the private and collective almost everywhere in Quebec.
A commissioner’s swan song
This 25e version of Mois Multi will be the sixth and final under the leadership of Commissioner Émile Beauchemin. This completes a cycle which has traveled between destruction and construction, beauty and ugliness, resistance and collapse through joy, just to pass on a luminous torch in spite of everything.
“There is a fairly generalized cynicism percolating at the moment, accompanied by the impression that there is no way out,” believes Émile Beauchemin. Artists are on constant quests to find new ways of describing their era. The Multi Month has become one of those rituals that helps us unite, find ourselves, express but also find our joy. »
Émile Beauchemin’s mandate at the helm of the festival will have confirmed the place of children in the great annual artistic mix of Mois Multi. “My greatest pride is to have been able to program a festival, year after year, which was aimed at both young and old and that it remains a festival which presents experimental and new approaches. »