Asia is huge. Colossal, even. We tend to forget that the largest continent in the world stretches from the shores of the Bering Strait in the far east of Russia to the Mediterranean beaches of Lebanon. A Montreal festival that celebrates Asian heritage must necessarily offer shows with multiple identities, even more so in this era of crossbreeding which is breaking down borders.
The 29e edition of the Accès Asia festival, which opens Thursday in Montreal, offers a series of concerts and events united by the common thread of “innovation, experimentation and decompartmentalization”. Concerts combining ancient and electronic music, visual arts and folk songs, artists from China and Syria: this festival which stretches throughout the month of May offers a typically Montreal variety.
“The works on the program celebrate the joy of being oneself and make room for different ways of seeing the world,” says Nayla Naoufal, director of this festival launched in 1995 to celebrate Asian Heritage Month.
Most of the artists on the bill for the 2024 edition are Montrealers with Asian origins, specifies the director, born in Beirut to a Lebanese father and a French mother. Nayla Naoufal remembers learning at school that Lebanon is part of Asia, but she agrees that this vast continent of around 50 countries can hardly be summed up in a month-long festival.
The opening evening, scheduled for Thursday in the atrium of the Conseil des arts de Montréal, sets the tone for the rest of the program: non-binary artist Komodo will act as “master of ceremonies”. A choreography will combine Mohawk art and dances from South India. DJ and music promoter Ziad Nawfal will then have the audience dancing to Middle Eastern rhythms.
“We have an intersectional stance with a program of artists and works at the crossroads of several, often minority, identities. We want to show that reality is complex,” explains Nayla Naoufal.
Novelty and tradition
Queer or non-binary artists with hybrid cultural origins are on display. Fili Gibbons, cellist and “sound engineer” of mixed Chinese and Canadian ancestry, will present Yu’s footsteps, an installation coupled with a sound mosaic based on the story of the Great Flood in ancient China. The artist interweaves cello, voice and movement in a quadraphonic installation.
Léuli Eshrāghi, who is also responsible for indigenous arts at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, will reveal his recent videos from his unique perspective: the queer artist has Persian, Chinese, European and indigenous Samoan roots.
The program leads to a reflection on “traditional” and “contemporary” art. “It’s not because we come from elsewhere that what we do is traditional,” emphasizes Nayla Naoufal. “We work both with artists who will distance themselves from traditions and not claim their cultural identities at all, and others whose work is anchored in their history,” she explains.
The Amwaj collective, which combines traditional Syrian music, electronic music and visual arts, will take the stage twice. Images of landscapes from Syria and Egypt, created by Montreal artist Jonathan Hardy, parade to the rhythm of pop and traditional oriental sounds. As the first part of one of the performances, Anqi Sun will launch her album Jiāwhich mixes electro-hip-hop melodies and touches of Chinese folk, always against a backdrop of digital images.
Guiterne, oud and chifonie
The ancient music concert Carmina Nisibenafor its part, is resolutely part of the “tradition”: at the crossroads of the sacred songs of Assyria (present-day Syria) and medieval pieces from the Iberian Peninsula of the 3rde century, it will bring together the singer and oudist Lamia Yared; Efrén López, who came from Spain for the occasion (guiterne, oud and chifonie); Ziya Tabassian (percussion); Marie-Laurence Primeau (viola da gamba); and Nizar Tabcharani (qanun).
In the same vein, the Bengali folk fusion group Surojit O Bondhura will offer a concert in homage to the “land of Tagore”. Iranian-born filmmaker Allen Forouhar follows five newcomers to Montreal in his documentary I am here. Syrian-born choreographer Hoor Malas will tell her story in the immersive solo If My Body Had a Name.
Two cabarets, conferences, discussions with artists, a creative activity for children and even a workshop on the Chinese tea ceremony are also on the menu. Concerts and other events take place in several boroughs of Montreal.