On Saturday, March 2, Nuit Blanche will light up Montreal. The annual event, which returns for its 21st edition this weekend, is presented as part of the winter festival, Montréal en Lumière. (Benoit Rousseau)
“Anything can happen at Nuit Blanche,” says Valérie Morel, the project manager for Montreal’s all-night art festival, and this year’s edition is nearly ready to launch. Starting Saturday evening (March 2), there’ll be more than 100 things to see and do for free: art installations, interactive workshops, performances, parties and more — activities that will be spread across eight neighbourhood hubs throughout the city, some running until six the next morning.
“We want people to get out of the winter rut, so it’s really a time to push yourself, to push your boundaries, to get out of the routine,” says Morel, who set the curatorial theme for 2024: “What’s your creative fantasy?” And when the party starts on Saturday night, she plans to hit as many Nuit Blanche sites as humanly possible. “I don’t go to bed,” she says with a laugh.
Still, there are a few choice projects that she’s especially excited to see, and if you’re mapping your route in advance, you’ll want to take notes, because Morel says these seven Nuit Blanche events are absolute must-sees. “Some of them are the definition of fantasy,” she says. “Every year there’s something I’ve never seen before, and that really makes me want to go.”
Roller disco in a library!
Nuit Blanche 2024 will make all your disco dreams come true. The roller skating party at Goethe-Institut is one of several disco-inspired events that are scheduled for Saturday night. (Goethe-Institut)
On Nuit Blanche, the Goethe-Institut might be the only library on the planet where you won’t get shushed. A roller disco will be happening in the stacks between 8 p.m. and midnight, so bring your own skates, or borrow a pair for free, and have fun zipping between the shelves while a DJ spins disco hits from Germany and beyond.
A library’s always a smart place to visit if you want to learn something new, and to that end, the Goethe-Institut will be offering free roller skating lessons between 8-9 p.m. (Sign up online.) And if you want to keep the party going, Nuit Blanche is disco dreaming all over the city. There’s also a silent “Disco Wonderland” happening at Ballet Hop! In Mile End; a live disco and soul review (Fantasy Fever) in the Quartier des Spectacles and a disco ice rink: the Nuit Blanche 2024 Skating Disco at Camillien-Houde Arena.
For Nuit Blanche, museums and cultural centres throughout the city will open their doors, and the NFB Space on Balmoral Street is one venue that Morel visits every year. Saturday, the NFB will be offering loads of family-friendly programming, including a marathon of short docs and animated films. But the main attraction is a chance to live out your Hollywood dreams. Produce an animated short where you’re the star. And while you’re walking the red carpet they’ve rolled out for Nuit Blanche, experience an Oscar moment by taking a selfie with an actual Academy Award.
The PHI Centre in Old Montreal is another venue that’s a perennial fave of Morel’s. “They’re extremely creative in what they offer, and it’s always out of the ordinary,” she says, and for Nuit Blanche 2024, they’re throwing a free 18+ party dubbed Foire Fantastique. Expect carnivalesque vibes as you wander through the space. The event’s being teased as a “travelling fair with strange characters,” and the night’s programming includes a bill of experimental performers and DJs. Once inside, guests are welcome to explore the centre’s season of immersive exhibitions, too. (Free admission. First come, first served.)
Run away to the circus (and this time, bring the kids)
The TOHU venue is unique to Montreal: a complex that’s dedicated to the circus arts. But for Nuit Blanche, they’ll be offering all kinds of entertainment, with a special focus on kid-friendly activities. Outside, you can go sledding, join a dance workshop or take a night-time tour of Frédéric-Back Park (on snowshoes). Inside the centre, find music, performances and art. There’s a detailed schedule on their website.
Alt-Escape is a new project from Video Phase, a Montreal-based company known for creating live, multimedia productions that mix music and interactive visuals, and for Nuit Blanche, they’ll be presenting three 20-minute performances of the show. The official synopsis is more than a little mysterious: it promises digital spectacle, musical instruments that are invented “from scratch” and an “experience meant to be heard with the eyes.”
“The description says it all and nothing,” says Morel. “But that’s why it’s so intriguing.” Space is limited, so you’ll need to reserve seats in advance, and if you’re lucky enough to score a spot, remember to stick around after the curtain falls. According to the event website, the audience will get a chance to chat with the artists and tinker with the digital instruments they’ve invented for the show.
Chill out at a museum
Installation view of untitled 1996 (rehearsal studio no. 6) by Rirkrit Tiravanija. (Richard-Max Tremblay)
Rirkit Tiravanija’s Untitled 1996 is an art installation that doubles as a fully functioning rehearsal studio, and it’s appearing at the PHI Foundation through March 10. On Nuit Blanche, five special musical performances will be taking place inside the piece. According to Morel, the lineup is hush-hush, although you can expect the sounds to be ambient in flavour. Visitors are encouraged to get cosy on the museum floor during the show. BYOB — the B is for blanket.
Make your own work of art, and hang it in a gallery
Atelier Circulaire and Arprim will hold a printmaking workshop (Corps Exquis) at the Belgo building in Montreal as part of Nuit Blanche 2024. (Atelier Circulaire)
Home to more than two dozen galleries, the Belgo Building in the Quartier Spectacles is like “a mini Nuit Blanche within Nuit Blanche,” says Morel. “I mean, you could just go there,” she laughs. But of all the things to see at Belgo Saturday night, Corps Exquis tops her to-do list. The event is a hands-on printmaking workshop led by artists Dominique Desbiens and Reid Jenkins at Arprim. Learn how to make a print with the stamps they’ll have on site, and then hang your creation in the gallery. Over the course of the night, a collaborative artwork will take shape: a mural of fantasy creatures.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
