Today is the beginning of “MainFest”, a 3 day “street fair” on St. Laurent Boulevard, or “The Main” Historic site. The boulevard will be completely closed to traffic and is expected to receive an estimated 300 000 visitors. According to The Société de développement du boulevard Saint-Laurent (SDBSL), organizers of “MainFest” and other “street fairs”:

“With summer on the way, everyone’s invited to come to Saint-Laurent Boulevard and check out the action. MainFest is the perfect occasion for the public to enjoy Saint-Laurent Boulevard’s great terrasses and discover the hot new summer trends in fashion, decor and music. It’s time to put those tuques and boots away for the season and revel in the warm weather! MainFest will be serving up a fabulous cocktail of beauty, fitness, sports, and music sessions that will appeal to all our visitors.”

Known for its capitalist approach and corporate connections, the SDBSL even promotes “guerrilla marketing” in the historic site where, according to the Canadian government at least, “intrusive elements must be minimal”. In the past the SDBSL has sold out the historic site to corporate interests on many occasions, including to unethical sponsors such as PartyPoker.Net, which prompted local citizens, heritage activists and culture-jammers to launch a campaign to Reclaim The Main!

Culture wars on the street are starting to heat up, and as the “MainFest” sets up shop, signs of corporate interference are already all over the place.

This beer company/sponsor, which has a mobile “DJ Booth” has co-opted anarchist colours (black and red) and revolutionary imagery to sell its brand of suds. Furthermore, a security force including private guards and police officers is enforcing “rules” in the corporate zone, while not actually following them themselves. For example, cycling is apparently prohibited.

However, this regulation did not stop police officers from zipping through the crowd on their bikes, even blowing red lights, all the while warning others to dismount their bikes or face a ticket.

Faced with such hipocrisy, on the other side of the equation activists are working with culture-jammers on a movie documenting the corporate takeover of the historic site. Guerrilla Video Productions, Optative Theatrical Laboratories, and others are demanding change and inviting resisters to participate and Reclaim the Main. Contact optatif@gmail.com to get involved.

The next street “event” organized by the SDBSL is called “Club Main”, and runs June 18–21, 2009:

“We can’t bring Saint-Laurent to the beach, so we’re bringing the beach to Saint-Laurent! Everyone is invited to join the fun at Club Main, Montreal’s one-of-a-kind urban beach, where partying is the name of the game. No need to travel halfway round the world to soak up that holiday atmosphere. It will all be right here! Visitors will be able to stroll around, laze in the sun or underneath a palm tree, enjoy beach sports, volleyball, and Wake dans’rue, watch the performers, and in the evening, party under the stars!”

While corporate sponsorship deals have not been announced yet, the closure of “The Main” coincides with the opening of the Montreal infringement festival.

One act that is sure to participate in culture-jamming the corporate spam is the ninth edition of Montreal’s “longest-running theatre experiment”, Car Stories. Optative Theatrical Laboratories is seeking volunteers to participate and get involved. The show runs from June 19 – 21 during the street closure, and is open to all interested players. Interested players will bring it to the fifth annual Buffalo infringement festival in late July. The next meeting is Tuesday June 2 at 6pm at the Bifteck (3702 St. Laurent). All are welcome!

So get on down to “The Main” and witness the corporate SDBSL events theatrically clashing with heritage activism, concerned citizens, culture-jammers, and those demanding the protection of the historic site. Better yet, join in the action and help usher in a new era where people take precedence over corporations!

It looks like ripping up the ground to create open pit mines in places like Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala just isn’t enough for some Canadian mining companies: RoyalOr has gone local!  The Johannesburg, South Africa-registered organization has plans to turn Mount Royal into an open-pit mine.

“People always talk about buying local food and local produce,” argued RoyalOr CEO and director Alonse Barbe to people on the mountain yesterday, “so why are we taking our gold all the way from Mexico when we could be taking it here from Mount Royal?”

anticipated pit scope for the Mount Royal project

Barbe cited the activities of his firm and other Canadian mining companies in communities around the world and the lack of reaction in Canada as an example of Canadians’ acceptance of the practice of open-pit mining.  He also hopes that protests against and opposition to RoyalOr’s plans can be quashed in a similar manner to how dissent is dealt with in the developing world: through bribery of officials and silence in the media.

The RoyalOr plan involves digging up an area which goes from around Dawson College to St-Urbain Street on the Plateau.  This would gut most of the mountain and also prompt the forced relocation of residents, many of them currently living in Upper Westmount.  Barbe hopes that the company’s generous offer of moving everyone affected to places like Longueil and Laval for free will help to offset potentially litigious opposition.

There is also oppositon brewing against the project by community organization and citizens in general.  It has also started generating buzz in the media, with articles appearing in the Montreal Mirror and Rue Frontenac.

It was with this in mind that Barbe and a team of surveyors, geologists and marketers went to the weekly Tam Tams celebration on the mountain yesterday to explain their project to members of the community.  They were met with some skepticism, but support as well.  Here is a video of some of what happened:

Representatives of RoyalOr will make their claim official today as they hammer in the last stake as part of a press conference.  You are invited to join them at 1:30pm by the gazebo.

Forum Theatre, Image Theatre, Invisible Theatre and Legislative Theatre along with others form a tree of theatre forms known as Theatre of the Oppressed.  All were created by Brazilian theatre theorist, writer and director Augusto Boal who passed away Saturday at the age of 78.

Boal is best-known for creating theatre techniques that allowed and encouraged rebellion and change to come from the oppressed groups themselves after he realized that didactic politically-motivated theatre was limited in how it could help those in the poor areas where he worked.

His teachings caught the attention of Brazil’s military dictatorship and they arrested and tortured Boal, eventually exiling him to Argentina where he wrote and published his first book, Theatre of the Oppressed, in 1973.  For the next twelve years, he went around Europe teaching and establishing Theatres of the Oppressed.

When the dictatorship fell, he returned to Rio de Janeiro and established a major Center for the Theater of the Oppressed (CTO Rio).  He also held public office as a city councilor for one term (1993-1997) where he created Legislative Theatre.

Boal has inspired people around the world, both theatre artists and not.  He also inspired us here at OTL in our own application of his techniques.  Augusto Boal leaves behind a legacy of empowerment and a new, revolutionary way of looking at theatre and what it can do to help those who need it most.

Today is May 1st, recognized in many places around the world as International Workers Day.  It traces its roots back to May 1st, 1886, when workers demanding an 8-hour work day walked out en-masse.  The police crackdown at the McCormick Reaper Works in Chicago two days later led to the Haymarket affair in where eight anarchists were eventually convicted of murder in a show trial.  Four of them were hung to death.

In Montreal, there is a long history of protest and artistic activism on May Day.  Sadly, there is also a history of police repression.  In 2008, for example, police cracked down on a mostly peaceful anti-capitalist march moments after it began.

This year’s march happens in the shadow of that event and also just a few months after the anti-police brutality march which ended, unfortunately, in police brutality and rioting.  Nonetheless, the march will begin today at 5:30pm in Cabot Square, leaving at 6:30pm for the Caisse des depots et placements in Old Montreal.

May Day also kicks off the Festival of Anarchy which now includes a theatre festival, arts exhibits, workshops, a squat (more on this in a few week) and of course the Anarchist Bookfair.  The festival lasts until May 31st.

Stella, the sex workers advocacy group, is hoping that workers’ rights will someday be extended to sex workers as well and in hopes of making this happen, they will be launching the latest edition of their ConStellation magazine tonight at Academy, 4445 St-Laurent, as part of a party thrown by Cirque de Boudoir.   The event starts at 9pm, costs $15 at the door (free for sex workers) and features DJ Frigid, Plastik Patrik and the Dead Doll dancers.

Over the past few years, the Immigrant Workers’ Centre in Cote-des-Neiges has hosted MayWorks an artistic celebration of workers’ rights.  This year is no different, except that the event will happen a week later on Saturday, May 9th starting at 5:30pm.