Festival TransAmériques:
The 2017 Season Preview

The FTA unveils its new preliminary programme

By Luc Archambault

On Wednesday, February 1st, the artistic director of the Festival TransAmériques (FTA), Martin Faucher, revealed a preliminary list of shows from its 2017 edition, which is scheduled to go on from May 25 to June 8. The festival, one of the world’s best in terms of both theatre and contemporary dance, as always stakes on highly original works and constitutes one of the highlights of performance arts in Montréal.

Wycinka Holzfällen – photo: Natalia Kabanow

The festival, one of the world’s best in terms of both theatre and contemporary dance… constitutes one of the highlights of performance arts in Montréal.

La Fureur de ce que je pense – photo: Caroline Laberge

Six works have been announced on the preliminary program list – three in dance and three in theatre. Tickets for these shows are already on sale. The rest of the programming will be made public on Tuesday, March 21, as well as the festival’s parallel activities, better known as Les terrains de jeu du FTA (the FTA’s playgrounds). On this date, the rest of the tickets, as well as tickets bundles for 4, 8 or 12 shows will be made available for sale.

On the dance side, the revealed shows include Some Hope for the Bastards, from Montreal choreographer Frédérick Gravel (on June 1 and 2), Caída del cielo from Rocío Molina, out of Seville, Spain (June 7 and 8), as well as a performance outside the official calendar, Le super méga continental, from Sylvain Émard (September 15 to 17).

Some Hope for the Bastards – photo: Stéphane Najman

The rest of the programming will be made public on Tuesday, March 21, as well as the festival’s parallel activities…

Le super méga continental – photo: Robert Etcheverry

On the theatre side, the experimental 100% Montréal, by Rimini Protokoll, of Berlin, will serve as an X-ray where 100 Montreal citizens will voice their opinions on their home city. This approach belongs to the 100% City series, which already had previous incarnations in Berlin, Tokyo, London, Melbourne and Philadelphia. This experiment constitutes the opening act of the 2017 FTA and will be held from May 25 till the 28.

A play out of Poland, Wycinka Holzfällen (“Trees to be toppled”, but this constitutes a very bad translation, since in the Polish-German original title, Wycinka in Polish, just as Holzfällen in German, means logging or tree-felling). An adaptation of a work written by Thomas Bernhard and staged by Krystian Lupa, in Polish with French and English subtitles, this long-length play of 4 hours and 40 minutes is to be presented on stage June 2 and 3.

100% Montréal – photo: Sandra Then

And as a crowning jewel, the stunning La Fureur de ce que je pense (the fury of my own thoughts), drawn from the body of work of Nelly Arcan and brought to stage by Marie Brassard. This is a hard-hitting play in which the writer is disincarnated into six distinct avatars, bringing each to life her feelings of unease as the many expressions of her pains as a woman. A gut shaking experience that won’t leave anyone untouched. This essential play is presented from June 3 to 6.

Feature image: Caída del cielo – djfrat