Also, do you have a favorite performance of yours?

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.

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. 

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. 

 Opt-out