The 30th Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur (FASS) program honors the performing arts including cinema and promises to be rich in discoveries. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, this year’s challenges included redesigning the Big Top marquee, inaugurating an international dance short film festival and organizing activities that encourage public participation, all the while respecting the required health measures to ensure the safety of those attending and working at the event. We will continue with outdoor film screenings plus explore new avenues, or rather new paths, for dance and music to reach the public. In addition, FASS will hold its first urban dance competition (“Dance Battle”).
« This summer the Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur is 30 years old. When I took over the artistic reins in 2015, I envisioned honouring the Festival’s history while giving it the means to secure its future in a changing world where geographic and artistic boundaries are blurring. The pandemic that changed our lives has strengthened my will. The digital arts have become partners of the performing arts, bringing new possibilities both in terms of creation and distribution. », stated FASS Artistic Director Guillaume Côté.
For his part, Etienne Lavigne, FASS Executive Director said « The Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur reaches its 30th anniversary milestone in sound artistic and financial health. Its artistic and media impact was especially recognized during the last season with the originality and quality of the 2020 edition earning it the Opus Award for Specialized Broadcaster of the Year. We are very proud of what has been achieved by our large number of artists and artisans over the past 30 years and look to the future with renewed energy.»
This program reflects FASS’ mission to bring the best choreographers, dancers and musicians to the Laurentians.
On July 29th, the Opening night will bring together the exceptional talents of Margie Gillis (whom the Festival had the honour of seeing at its first year in 1992), Sylvain Lafortune and Annik Hamel, Maude Sabourin and Raphaël Bouchard, Rubberband Dance, and from the National Ballet of Canada, Brendan Saye, Svetlana Lunkina, Jeaninne Haller, Siphe November, Calley Skalnik and Larkin Miller.
In the series of shows that follow, the young choreographer Jera Wolfe, associated with Red Sky Performance, will present Begin Again in addition to two premieres on July 30th where we will see the combination of complex movements and strong images that are his trademark and expression of his culture.
On July 31st , The Compagnie Marie Chouinard will display all its brilliance with a fresh look at a collection of solos and duets from its vast repertoire, in addition to offering us two unpublished pieces from its archives and a creation distilled from forty years of exploration of movement.
Citadel+Compagnie (formerly Coleman Lemieux et Compagnie) returns on August 1st to our Big Top with Zhenya Cernacov and the prima ballerina Evelyn Hart, whose intensity and sublime sensitivity were so much admired at our first Festival in 1992. The duo performs Four Old Legs by James Kudelka, a magnificent work on lasting love, the passage of time and the ups and downs of aging.
On August 4th, 5th and 6th, for the first time since the pandemic, Guillaume Côté will be back on stage in front of an audience to offer Quebec public the first creation of his company, Côté Danse, +(ten), inspired by the mythical odyssey of Ulysses who spent ten years to find his homeland and his family. He will be accompanied in this adventure by contemporary dancers Martha Hart, Kelly Shaw, Benjamin Landsberg and Rakeem Hardy.
The virtuoso violinist Angèle Dubeau makes a welcome return to FASS in the company of the nine brilliant musicians of La Pietà to perform a waited concert on August 7th.
On the virtual side, the festival has sponsored the production of four films combining dancers with artists working in other fields, in order to generate unusual collaborations. Directed by Ben Shirinian, the In Tandem film series pairs countertenor Daniel Taylor and the Colombian multidisciplinary artist Andrea Peña; Innu poet and singer Natasha Kanapé Fontaine and choreographer Jera Wolfe; The Jireh Gospel Choir and dancer Frédérick Gravel. For his part, Guillaume Côté will be paired with Orchestre Métropolitain and designer Yso South.
It will be possible to see these films under the stars or on the Web, as well as the works selected for our International festival of short dance films, FASS Forward, which is new this year.
In the Forest of Molson Park, Dance Paths will allow the public to attend short dance and music performances offered by the urban dancer Crazy Smooth, the contemporary dancer Eva Kolarova and horn player Louis-Philippe Marsolais, the choreographer Sara Harton accompanied by pianist Anne-Marie Bernard and François Richard of the company Andrea Peña & artists, as well as flamenco transformed by La Otra Orilla and jigs combining modernity and tradition with the Mackinaw company.
On August 8th Les Grands Ballets Canadiens will close the festival in style with a joyful mixed program from its « Envolée au Québec » tour.
Tickets go on sale from June 28 at 10 am on the festival website: www.festivaldesarts.ca
About FASS :
Founded in 1992 as the Festival des Arts Hiawatha, the Festival was renamed the Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur in 1997. The Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the discovery and presentation of the best choreographers, dancers and musicians. Through its eclectic and original programming, the Festival seeks to support and inspire artists from Canada and around the world, and to introduce audiences to their work and passion in an intimate setting.