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 […]
It took a while, but the federal government finally seems ready to invest a bit of money in the Quebec arts scene. In fact, the department of Canadian Heritage is giving $4,222,861 to Montreal organizations like the National Theatre School, Les Grands ballets canadiens de Montréal and The Leanor and Alvin Segal Theatre. They are […]
In 1971, Augusto Boal started what he called Newspaper Theatre to theatrically deal with current social issues in Brazil. The concept soon blossomed into a tree of theatrical techniques including Forum Theatre and Image Theatre called Theatre of the Oppressed. The concept soon spread to other countries in South America and eventually around the world. […]
The Reverend Kevin Annett knows what it’s like to be under the microscope. He was kicked out of the United Church for speaking out against what happened to native people in Canada’s residential school system. When it became apparent that he wouldn’t be silent and do what he was told, they made things very difficult […]
While many films, along with entertainment in general, have been known to desensitize people to violence, the Bloc Quebecois hope to use the medium to sensitize Members of Parliament from all parties to the magnitude of tragedies like the massacre of 14 women by Marc Lepine at Ä–cole Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989. This event, […]
Montreal is no stranger to graffiti, in fact some of the most celebrated graffiti artists in recent memory, such as Roadsworth, call or have called Montreal their home and some walls, especially in the Plateau neighborhood, boast some of the nicest underground art around. Sadly, Montreal is also no stranger to police brutality, police repression […]
With the Tax Day Tea Party, it looks like Fox News and the Republicans have now embraced a form of activism: the theatrical culture jam. Now co-opting activist tools for corporate purposes is nothing new, in fact stealth marketers have been doing it for years, but using an activist technique to bolster a right-wing message […]
The latest evictees in Montreal’s new Quartier des Spectacles aren’t sex workers, historic hot dog joints or even the homeless. The latest residents forcibly removed by the city do have a history in the area, though. Each of them, in fact, has been living there for 45 years and their roots do run deep. The […]
Abitibi-Témiscamingue is no stranger to mines, in fact, there are over 100 of them in this mineral-rich region in northern Quebéc. Along with forestry and agriculture, mining is one of the most important parts of the region’s economy. There is, however, one type of mine that has fortunately not found its way to the region […]
You may have noticed something a bit strange if you happened to pass a police officer yesterday morning. No red cap, no camouflage pants, just an ordinary Montreal cop uniform. That’s because, in order to speed up contract negotiations, the patriarchal-sounding Montreal Police Brotherhood, the union representing Montreal’s police officers, has agreed to drop its […]
