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In this text, TL Cowan describes many events that have historically taken place in montreal, ending with "As Ginestier explains, cabaret is an opportunity for a community or scene to see itself in its many forms, to improvise scenarios of delight and discomfort, and ultimately, to be in a state of becoming rather than already made."

It's interesting to see how many of these venues still exist and how things have changed since then. La Salla Rosa still very much exists (thankfully) and was one of the first stages I have ever performed on. I know Miriam Ginestier primarily as the brains behind Studio 303, another very important space for me.  Studio 303 has their annual Cabaret Toille but cabart is not their main focus.  I hadn't actually known much about Miriam Ginestier's work with cabaret before.

I like the idea of how the improvisational and eclectic nature of cabaret reflects our world and our cultures, and how we change with them. The scene has to adapt, and cabarets have to go with the flow and say "yes and" to everything.

Cowan writes that "the job of the curator is to provide the unexpected". Often the unexpected winds up happening anyways (as tends to happen in live theatre), but cabaret is specifically designed for this. Tis flexibility is possibly what allows it to appear in so many places and in so many different forms.

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How did you get started in burlesque? How did that transfer in to running your own cabarets?

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Has doing cabaret affected your relationship with femininity? Has it affected how you feel about your physical self?

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What has been the most interesting thing you've learned from keeping pieces of your past works? Does this practice affect how you create new works?

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Hi Alexis! What is your process for devising new works?  Are there elements or ideas that you always like to include? Thank you!

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Everyone in the “Ce Soir On Sort” video speaks with such nostalgia about the night life and venues in Montreal. There is almost a sense of longing about it for a lot of the people, even though some things really haven’t changed that much. Some of the venues still exist, the desires to be out and go to a bunch of places in one night still exist, the general party atmosphere of the city still exists. St Laurent is still very much St Laurent (although is it really with the damage being done south of deMaisonneuve…)  The people in this videos still remember everything very clearly.

I’ve heard a lot of people say they feel younger in Montreal. My favourite Leonard Cohen is from one of his books, and it goes goes “No one ever leaves Montreal, for that city is designed to preserve the past, a past that happened somewhere else”. Something about this city preserves things, holds on to its past, and different pasts too.

We all know that a lot of changed here. Just the rent increases and big developers have led to the closures of a lot of historic and important establishments within the last decade. COVID has changed the feel of the city and how people navigate being out late and being around others. A lot of venues have closed and people have moved away because of the pandemic too.

It’s weird, I’m 25 and I could speak just as nostalgically in past tense about places and communities and events that used to exist here. It’s wild to see how much has changed, and I wonder what Montrealers relationship will be with history and nostalgia now.

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remember that weird gentrification campaign thing the gay village had where they claimed calling it "the village" would be more inclusive meanwhile we've never had a lesbian bar in the gay village and the closest thing we have to one now is "a bar that wlw go to sometimes" and it is in little italy

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when lil nas x said "am i stupid to be funny over things that have been haunting me for all my life" i felt that

ive been thinking about why i stopped comedy and my complicated relationship w poetry

i started feeling like a object, like my art wasn't the art, I was the art

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are you really that good of a producer if you insist on sticking with one venue even though there are cheaper and more accessible ones out there?

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2019 left me
vengeful and bleeding
and broken
and blood thirsty

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Lights on full.

A cis straight woman walks onstage. She is dressed as a birth certificate. She goes up to the mic and says

"I was assigned ITALIAN AT BIRTH
but why does it matTER
what SOCIETY says
when there's so much more in my HEAD
and in my heart
tear it APART!"

She then rips her costume in half, turning the birth certificate in to two bills... bill two. She lays them on the floor and proceeds to jump on them.

lights off.

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How do you navigate the lines between audience and intimacy? Have you ever begun work on a performance and then decided it was too intimate or personal?

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TL Cowan's article made me reminisce on all the shows I've ever been a part of.

Specifically, Cowan's experience running Choice Words reminds me of my first time co-producing a cabaret night. It was called "Show and Tell: A Night of Performances, Props, and Anything Else!" (or just "Show and Tell' really). Performers were asked to do a performance involving or based around a prop. The show took place at Mainline in March 2019. (Yes, we did a cabaret in a blackbox theatre. The venue had already been booked before we started working on the show, so we had to redecorate a little) Like Cowan, I had invited too many performers. I also only learned that we had a tech when I arrived at the venue, and several of the performers all suddenly decided they had tech needs upon meeting her. That was certainly a learning experience, but the show was a lot of fun and I heard a lot of people say they enjoyed it.

Other similarities between mine and Cowan's events are that a lot of the content was feminist/queer and we had a diversity of performers. We also primarily advertised over facebook. While reading Cowan's article I kept getting distracted by searching for what tangible things are left of this night. The place with the most information was probably our facebook event page. https://www.facebook.com/events/310180956359357 The only other online place it appears is on the Mainline website. It might be possible to find short videos of various performances, but that involves searching through each performer's own archive.

Cowan's article also made me think about how people might not remember Kama La Mackerel's Gender B(l)ender cabaret style events, even though they were a solid and important part of Montreal's queer landscape for 5 years. You can relatively easily find things online about the events, even more so if you look what to look for, but even if you do there are still many gaps. It's hard to emphasize why and what about these events were so special. This was my contribution to that archive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtzrSg24spM

I think it's important to remember that oral storytelling is a type of archive. It keeps the memories and experiences alive. It might be important to make space and time to talk about what cabarets we've experienced meant to us and all the ways that they've changed us.

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There's so much we need
are party platforms enough
to fix the problems?

Bonus:
They're politicians
I don't care who is hotter.
They're POLITICIANS

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imagine if i was more of a dom and i had made the random lady at the bar who asked me "sweetie do you need help" pay for my drink

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What are some of the most important aspects of producing Cabarets?
What are your favorite approaches to working on new performances?

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Deanne Taylor discusses how one of the liberating elements of cabaret is the fact that it can take any form. She says "Everything  is  incorporable  into  the cabaret  form.  I  can  play  with  music,  I  can  play  with  poetry,  I  can  play  with  an  audience  who  encourages  that  form  of  theatre." Being able tp express your ideas in an way, whichever way feels right for the moment, makes cabaret an experience that is very much in the now. This text discusses the inherent political nature of cabaret and how it has always existed on the margins of society. Taylor's quote makes me wonder if part of the reason for this is that people have been able to play with form, if that is what makes it so open to different kinds of artists (and people in general).

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Oh    gosh, dadaism... have i mentioned that I used to be an art history major? In case you didn't know, I'm an art history dropout.  I'm sure I never talk about it,

I feel like dadaism comes back in to everything. Or maybe a lot of people are always in a state of "fuck it there's a war" or "fuck it we're marginalized" or occasionally just "fuck it because I'm privileged enough to say that." Either way I still occasionally find myself compelled to remind people that Marcel Duchamps existed. Rip mr. Duchamps  you were probably a bad person but you would have LOVED memes.

The connection between cabaret and dadaism do make complete sense. Dadaism brought the rise of the collage, and cabarets are themselves a form of collage. This can be in the different assortments of cabaret acts or even just in the way putting on a cabaret often begins by collaboration.

I wonder if part of the reason for how dadaism and cabaret have stood the test of time is because of this collage aspect.  People like contributing and adding to a larger picture. People resonate with the idea of being able to contribute anything and everything. People like doing their own thing while still being part of a larger whole. People like being told they CAN do something.

Not to be an art history major dropout but this is why it annoys me when people look at  contemporary art and say "but I could do that!!" How is that a bad thing? let's do it then! Collages and cabarets invite people in. They say that if you have something to bring, then just bring it, and let's enjoy ourselves.

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Hi Kama! It’s so exciting to see all the projects you’re working on. My question is, what has your history of hosting events and holding space meant for you? What has it meant to provide such solid and consistant support for members of the community?Thank you so much!

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Hi Kama! It’s so exciting to see all the projects you’re working on. My question is, what has your history of hosting events and holding space meant for you? What has it meant to provide such solid and consistant support for members of the community?Thank you so much!

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Show Business, Pas Peur, Swan Song, and Casta Diva, the colour blue features prominently, and is often the main one you use. What does that colour mean for you? Was this a conscious choice as a way of interconnecting them (ie, placing them in the same or similar world), or is it more or less just a colour that often fits your work?

Also, do you have a favorite performance of yours?