Because capturing the imagination of their students is not an easy task for secondary school history teachers, some of them sometimes highlight the “bad life” led by the first settlers of New France in the motherland. , among whom were prostitutes and, more generally, people hoping to be able to regain their reputational virginity, on the other side of the ocean.
In recent years, Adib Alkhalidey has read a lot of Serge Bouchard who, more than anyone else, has contributed to immortalizing the remarkable forgotten people of history. “He takes the time to go into detail about the existence of the men and women who came here,” underlines the 35-year-old comedian. “And it made me think a lot of the courage of my parents to have left their country with the hope of a better life, in a world they knew nothing about. »
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Adib Alkhalidey in interview
But without historians and anthropologists like the late woolly mammoth, these brave adventurers would have remained in the shadow of those in whose honor bridges are named.
“I was told so much about Samuel de Champlain in high school,” recalls Adib, “but Champlain was so jealous of those who sacrificed their lives arriving here that he erased them from the history books. » He widens his eyes and bursts out in bewildered laughter. “Even in the old days, when someone came from nothing and accomplished something, there was a powerful person who found it unpleasant! »
Tell your story
In summary: Adib Alkhalidey belongs to those who must tell their story, at the risk of being obliterated by time, and of being reduced, like the King’s daughters, to the rank of whores or thieves.
My show is a reminder that no one is going to come and save you if you don’t do it yourself. What will save you is taking charge of your ability to educate yourself. This is why I say as often as possible that reading is what has helped me the most in life.
Adib Alkhalidey
In this fifth one-man show, Adib talks about where he comes from. “And where I come from, it’s not Iraq or Morocco,” he explains, referring to his parents’ country of origin. Adib Alkhalidey comes from the Montreal of poverty, in which he no longer lives, thanks to his own efforts, and above all, thanks to the work of his father and mother. A word, work, which he repeats throughout the entire show, biting into the first syllable, as if he were talking about a religion to which he had been forced to adhere.
“Being a class defector is like double immigration,” explains the one who digs into Whores and thieves some of the same themes as on his third album of songs released last fall, Dirty Arab in Therapy (or The Discreet Charms of a Class Defector).
“Being a class defector means arriving at the table and realizing that you don’t know why the utensils are placed like that,” he illustrates. I learned from the mocking looks of others that I came from a different socio-economic place than many people from my background, because Quebec culture is in the hands of people who know nothing about where I come from. And where I come from is the people. »
The land of his home
In Quebecois tabarnakAdib Alkhalidey testified to the way in which, after years of identity and existential crisis, he had made the choice to belong with all his heart and soul to Quebec culture, because belonging is essential to the development of everything To be human.
This time it is a question, in Whores and thieves, of the earth, the one in which we put down our roots, a reflection initiated by the comedian after saying goodbye to his father. “When you put a member of your family in the ground, the concept of land takes on another meaning,” he observes. I know now that this is where I will mourn my father. And it made me realize that I can’t belong to this earth any more than that. »
“I don’t necessarily want to delve into negative or difficult themes, but I felt the need to go there,” continues the one who reconnects with the tone of Quebecois tabarnakand intersperses, between his moments of delirium, more serious, almost serious parentheses, moments of breathtaking mastery which only increase the laughter tenfold once he unlocks them.
When you make art, you quickly realize that you just have two options. Either you entertain people with the idea of death, or you create something that seeks meaning in your life, and therefore perhaps encourages others to seek meaning in theirs, even if it’s hard, even if it hurts, even if it’s scary.
Adib Alkhalidey
The stage is therefore for him, more than ever, the place of all freedoms, where he can say what he wants to say, as he wants to say it. Adib Alkhalidey is both one of the most refined and popular Quebec comedians in French. No Quebec platform wanted to broadcast the recording of Quebecois tabarnakyet one of the best comedy shows of the last 20 years, from which it was out of the question for its creator to erase Church words or potentially more flammable passages.
“Where I come from, people talk big, they use words that we would describe as vulgar,” he said. Yes, I could make the effort not to curse, but there is a part of me that wonders if someone isn’t trying to erase me by asking me to erase the bad words. »
Adib is on a roll. “I’ve been trying for years to put on fiction series that show where I come from and each time, I’m told that it’s too much this or too much that. I used to listen and as I get older, I understand that it’s just because these people don’t know where I come from. Quebecers have no idea to what extent what comes to them is diluted by incompetence. They do not realize to what extent, in Quebec, art is a game politics, except stand-up, because there are no subsidies in stand-up. You go on stage and the people decide. »
Bachelor party, his first fiction series, co-written with Béatrice Fournera and Panayotis Pascot and co-directed with the latter, will be broadcast over the coming months on the French channel Canal+. And for the moment, nowhere in Quebec.
Search for meaning
That day we found ourselves in the offices of La Tribu, the company that produces Adib Alkhalidey’s tour, and which has been associated with Cowboys Fringants for more than 20 years. On the wall, behind him, several photos of the group and, everywhere in these photos, the immaculate smile of Karl Tremblay. At 17, “in the hood de Saint-Laurent”, Adib listened in secret from his friends At half-mast And The demonstrationuntil he realized that his Arab-Quebec friends were also listening At half-mast And The demonstration in secret.
We have lost several great Quebec artists in recent years and each time, I cried as if I had lost a member of my family.
Adib Alkhalidey
“Every time, it’s like a part of me dies. Because like them, I believe in this society in which I invest all my heart, all my efforts. »
Adib does not take seriously the admiration he receives, but takes seriously the sacred gesture of addressing an audience. “There is nothing trivial about talking to people,” he insists. What I take seriously is the connection with other humans that I feel in my body and my heart when I’m on stage. This is what keeps me in this violent, unhealthy profession, full of competition and charlatans. What I feel is too strong and it is proof that what I create does not belong to me, but to all of us. »
Adib Alkhalidey begins his Quebec tour this Friday at the Odyssée hall in Gatineau. It will be at the Théâtre Maisonneuve at Place des Arts from May 23 to 25 and from May 30 to 1er June.
Whores and thieves
On tour throughout Quebec until July