The open mic comedians started the evening off, and it quickly became clear that no topic was off-limits. Dating, sex, family life, sexism, racism, and ableism were all explored. As several comedians expressed, comedy can be cathartic for both audience and performer. Or, as another commented, pouring your heart out on stage is “cheaper than therapy.” The night showcased a diverse range of eight women and femmes, all incredible comedians with great delivery. While some were fairly new to the comedy scene, others were seasoned performers.

[Comedy] can be cathartic for both audience and performer.

Toronto-based Ify Chiwetelu was the night’s headliner. Nigerian born and Calgary raised, Chiwetelu was winner of the 2015 Bad Dog Theatre Breakout Performer award. She brought the house down with a combination of laughter and empowerment. Ify drew attention to our society’s seemingly relentless need to categorize others’ gender and sexuality by relaying her own experience of individuals trying to “work out” her sexuality.

As the daughter of Biafra war survivors, Ify may have had an unconventional and complex upbringing, but managed to communicate her story to the audience in relatable terms. For example, it’s not uncommon to have a parent forbid you from doing something with friends, such as going camping in Ify’s case, but the reasons might not usually include “we didn’t escape the war and move to Canada for you to sleep outside!”

Like many of the other performers, Ify touched on her dating experiences, particularly having to navigate the dating scene as a woman of colour in a racist world. This world, oftentimes, is ignorant of its own racism, as illustrated by the stellar “pick up line” that cause her to delete her Tinder account: “I’ve never been with a black woman.” The evening’s goal wasn’t only to make the audience laugh, but to question society’s norms surrounding the objectification of women, the exoticization of women of colour, and the need to categorize people into neat, binary boxes.

As the event organisers pointed out, feminists can be hilarious, and it’s good to keep a sense of humour when fighting for social justice.

Kalyani Pandya, whose biography introduced her as holding the title of “Ottawa’s Funniest Dyke,” stood out in particular among a lineup of incredible performers. Kalyani’s set up, delivery, and in particular her character portrayal, was impeccable, making it clear she was very comfortable on stage.

As someone who is able-bodied and experiences white privilege, there were times during the evening where I felt uncomfortable as subjects of ableism and racism were touched on. However, I think this was a necessity. It helped me to question myself. Why do these things make me uncomfortable? How do I contribute to the perpetuation of these negative stereotypes or societal norms? Have I unwittingly been continuing to behave in a way that harms others?

As the event organisers pointed out, feminists can be hilarious, and it’s good to keep a sense of humour when fighting for social justice. The Center for Gender Advocacy organized an entertaining and informative night of comedy with a stellar line up. It’s exciting to see so many up-and-coming comedians from Montreal and the surrounding area, and refreshing to attend a comedy show that represented a multitude of voices.

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Lamarche’s new exhibit “What Goes Around Comes Around” is being featured at Artgang. The first thing you see at the exhibit is Lamarche’s tag on one of the first walls. It is a simple “SP.one” tag, but the juxtaposition of this scrawl alongside Lamarche’s more polished pen and ink works is reminiscent of the simple graffiti writing common to urban cities.

Away from the context of street walls, Lamarche experiments with his background – one of his works is on an inner sleeve of an LP, featuring a small image of a metro station in the corner, paying homage to one of graffiti culture’s birthplaces. Other pieces are drawn on workbook divider pages or on pages ripped out of sketchbooks. Some pieces incorporate earthy beige tones, but splashes of colour are not uncommon – with one piece featuring his tag bursting through a brick wall, a rainbow trailing behind it.

Away from the context of street walls, Lamarche experiments with his background – one of his works is on an inner sleeve of an LP, featuring a small image of a metro station in the corner, paying homage to one of graffiti culture’s birthplaces.

Lamarche is based in New York, a city where graffiti has a constant presence. This environment no doubt has played a large part in his artistic journey. Lamarche has a uniquely developed style, likely due to his extensive experience and experimentation over the years.

Tags aside, “What Goes Around Comes Around” also displays some of Lamarche’s hand-cut paper collages. Lamarche boasts an extensive vintage collection of printed works, and these collages are clearly inspired by graffiti writing in their colours, outlines, and range of fonts. Aside from working as an artist, Lamarche is also a graphic designer, and this expertise comes through clearly in his crisp and clear collages.

One collage, Fun Gun, strays from variations on language and text and is much more image-heavy. The piece features a gun, but in place of ammunition are different kinds of markers, like the ones graffiti writers often favour in their workbooks. In fact, Lamarche has said in previous interviews that Fun Gun is one of his own favourite pieces. “I showed it once and didn’t want to sell it, and it has lived in my collection ever since,” has said.

Lamarche is literally in the street art history books – his work is featured in The History of American Graffiti. One of the most respected artists on the scene, Lamarche brought his entire repetoire to Artgang, giving fans of the medium and fellow artists alike delighted in the opportunity to follow the artist’s development over the years, and perhaps get inspired themselves.

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Around fifty spectators mingled and took advantage of the free beer while the 12 skaters practiced tricks in the lead-up to the game. Poser is a popular skateboarding game, though usually not played in a competitive setting. Contestants attempt a series of skateboarding tricks; for each trick a person misses, they receive a letter of the word “poser.” Once they receive all five letters, they are disqualified. After a few quick words from the two judges and the organizer, David “Boots” Bouthillier, the game was on.

This year’s competition came down to Zander Mitchell and Will Marshall in the final round. Mitchell won last year’s competition convincingly, and, while Marshall gave him a run for his money, Mitchell returned to take out the 16th annual City Hall championship.

A grassroots skateboarding competition, The Poser Game Championship has maintained its chill feel year after year, despite an increasingly large following. Bernard Mailhot organized the competition in its first two years, and Bouthillier took over the competition in its third year and has been working to keep it going ever since.

Due to municipal government regulations, this hasn’t exactly been an easy task. Skateboarding is illegal in Montreal’s public parks, and there is a general consensus amongst local skaters that designated skate parks are subpar. This has forced the annual championship to shift its location several times in recent years (sometimes mid-game). In fact, in its first year the contestants had to move the event from its initial location at City Hall.

“The spirit of the game is from City Hall because City Hall is where we used to skateboard in the early nineties,” Bouthillier explained. “It was the place to meet up and skate, so that’s why it’s still called the Montreal City Hall Championship Poser Game. But we’re no longer doing the contest there, because we can’t get away with what we’re doing here now.

However, headway is being made. Bouthillier and the Société des Arts Technologiques recently led the charge in legalizing the sport at Peace Park, the popular skateboarding location. Montreal mayor Denis Coderre heard their call, backing a pilot project that led to the legalization of skateboarding at the Park.

Despite these outside tensions, events like The City Hall Poser Game exemplify the accessible nature of Montreal’s skateboarding community. Bouthillier highlighted how open the local scene is to newcomers and travellers: “It’s a tight-knit community, but it’s very accepting, so when people come to visit, we welcome them.” That sense of community was certainly present at this year’s competition, as some of the winners from the past 16 years returned to judge.

After 16 years of trial and persistence, the Montreal City Hall Poser Game is here to stay. Providing a low-pressure environment to compete, the City Hall Championship brings together the skating community in a city where it has often been a challenge for that community to even exist.

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In an interview with The Daily, Buholzer said, “In working with traditional circus images, we wanted to avoid the position of presenting ‘simple’ humanity over spectacularity. […] In traditional circus, ‘humanity’ is already there more than anywhere else, sublated through the presentation of pure form – splits, flips, et cetera. I’m bothered by how the ‘human circus’ type of show relies on a concept of humanity that is more illusory than actual, and that it replaces one set of aesthetic values with another.”

Buholzer began the performance on stage, balanced precariously on a trapeze. Seemingly struggling to maintain her balance, she would fall and catch the bar under the crook of her arm, only to hoist herself back up again. Immediately breaking the implicit trust between audience and performer typical of circus shows, Buholzer’s wavering and falling generated an air of anxiety in the audience. This also worked to immediately chip away at the practiced veneer of circus performance, bringing an element of deliberate imperfection and error to the perfectionist art form; it is easy to admire Buholzer and Saulgrain’s ability to fool the audience.

“I’m bothered by how the ‘human circus’ type of show relies on a concept of humanity that is more illusory than actual, and that it replaces one set of aesthetic values with another.”

“There were a few different subversive impulses at the beginning of the creation,” added Buholzer. “The idea of traditional circus remains an idea, a starting point, and it took some mysterious combinations, [like] Thomas as the clown doing a hoop-diving act to Beyoncé, to reveal the more interesting facets of those images. The characters are almost objects in this piece, and my point of view is that ‘humanity’ [and subjectivity] is, if anywhere, in the spaces between objects [and] scenic elements.”

There was a real Brechtian feel to the show, as the pair changed costumes on stage and even changed the music accompanying the show in full view of the audience, sometimes mid-song. At this point, even the basic understanding of ‘performance’ started to deteriorate, leaving audience members to second-guess themselves. Everything was strange in the piece, but nothing was random. Each “accidental” act was nothing of the sort, but instead sought to challenge the idea of polished performance art.

Or Cirque functioned as a necessary and effective rebuttal to traditional circus. As the headquarters of Cirque du Soleil and home to a week-long summer festival devoted to the art, Montreal is saturated with acrobatics. Buholzer and Saulgrain pushed the concept of “circus” to its limit, and then further. Yes, trapeze work and acrobatics were present in the performance, but they acted as ingenuities. Or Cirque prompted viewers to question the very basis of performance itself, subverting the original genre of circus along the way.

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