Culture pour tous
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GUIDE FOR PARTICIPANTS OF THE JOURNÉES DE LA CULTURE 2005
Consult the following guide:
Participation criteria
Suggested orientations
Success stories
Reaching out to the marginalized
Online registration
Activities must adhere to the following guidelines:
1. Be offered free of charge so that all citizens can have equal and unobstructed access; (explanation)
2. Take place during Journées de la culture, i.e. the Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday;
3.Be produced by professional artists, artisans, or cultural workers (members of a professional association whose practice is recognized);
4.Promote discoveries, exchanges, and interactions on the processes involved in training, researching, producing, conserving, presenting, or creating via four types of activities :
- Demonstration
- Hands-on activities
- Guided tours and circuits with commentary
- Forums and discussions
5. A voir lieu dans un environnement accueillant, convivial et festif.
5. Take place in a space that is inviting, friendly, and festive.
If you want to be more involved and reach people who rarely frequent artistic and cultural sites, associate your activity with a community organization.
Apart from adhering to the participation criteria, activities should stand out thanks to their uniqueness by offering events, performances, or interventions that are engaging, fun, humourous, daring, original, or surprising.
Dare to present new ways of doing things, new methods of communication and intervention in order to reach out to the public and encourage them to participate.
The activity could bring people together and get them to participate while encouraging them to be open to one another and exchange with their fellow participants.
Present your activity in a location other than a cultural institution by reaching out to citizens in their everyday environment or by transforming public spaces into areas of artistic and cultural intervention. For example: a coffee shop could become the stage for contemporary dance; a store could become an exhibition or performance hall.
Develop partnerships and mobilize participants from various sectors such as education, health, social work. The site, www.msss.gouv.qc.ca/reseau, will give you the names of the socio-cultural organizations in your area. Initiate constructive meetings and exchanges, create a new dynamic within your neighborhood, city, or region.
Why not shed light on a little-known skill? For example: a day in the life of a set designer or restorer. Or, an experimental workshop where the creator changes the rules of the game. The visitor then becomes the director.
Activities held in intimate settings are also popular. For example: a choreographer invites a few people to help him stage the final tableau of his most recent choreography; the public is invited to visit a hat-maker's studio.
Find dynamic ways to sensitize the public about heritage, architecture, history, and design. For example: a bicycle tour of historic sites by torch light, or at daybreak; a tour of ancestral homes with commentary by architects or historians.
Activities to make the public more aware of the culture and creations of ethno-cultural artists could be presented outdoors or beyond the sites usually used by ethno-cultural communities. Workshops featuring music, dance, and visual arts are more likely to familiarize the public with forms of expression from abroad.
Explore themes which reflect the particular aspects of a region or current issue. For example: in an oceanographic museum, sailors talk about aspects of their trade; a cultural policy is about to be adopted by the authorities in your community - citizens and artists discuss the changes this will bring about in the community.
Activities based on a theme can shed light on specific and unexpected synergies. For example: you could collect stories and old objects used in contemporary life.
Please note that fairs, exhibitions, and shows that do not feature audience-participation will not be accepted
- A laundromat is transformed into a small theatre during the public reading of a play where the main action is situated in…a laundromat. A bar on the Main, a favourite haunt of anglophone actors, becomes the stage for a new play. Participants act as extras during two public readings. Infinitheatre, Montreal. Telephone: (514) 987-1774
- Guided tour of fourteen Montreal photo installations in the businesses and shops located in the Villeneuve district: from the Laundromat to the tailor's, from the antique shop to the bicycle store. Atelier Fovea, Montreal. Telephone: (514) 286-4280
- In a former lumberjack camp circa 1930-1940, visitors participate in an interactive evening of traditional songs and legends. Les Promoteurs d'Angliers. Telephone: (819) 949-4431
- As the city sleeps during the night of Saturday to Sunday, two lanes in Plateau Mont-Royal come alive to the sounds of intimate exchanges. Lit by candles and accompanied by musicians, actors perform excerpts from various plays and interact with the public. Théâtre de Quat'Sous, Montreal. Telephone: (514) 845-7277
- Ten visual artists take over the windows of shops on Racine Street. Converted into creative spaces, the windows are transformed according to the creators' inspiration. Association des centres-villes de Chicoutimi. Telephone: (418) 693-6731
- Mimes invade a library. These unusual characters make their home under the balustrade. Their bodies tell a story. Where do they come from? Where are they going? What do they want? Bibliothèque centrale de Montréal. Telephone: (514) 872-5923, Mime Omnibus, Montreal. Telephone: (514) 521-4188
- Students in the plastic arts program invite the public to donate pieces of colorful fabric to cover a "Land Art" project, taking place in two corn fields bordering the river. Cégep de La Pocatière. Telephone: (418) 856-1525 poste 2255
- On the balcony of a café, actors re-enact famous balcony scenes, taken from plays such as Romeo and Juliet and Cyrano de Bergerac, followed by a meeting with the actors and a commented exhibition on balcony scenes. Café-Théâtre l'Aparté, Catherine Brochu and Pascal Lafond, Montreal. Telephone: (514) 890-6476
- A cultural agent hosts an outing on a restored bakery truck and lets his guests discover the city's patrimonial and architectural treasures. Service des Loisirs de la ville de Montmagny, Villes et Villages d'art et de patrimoine. Telephone: (418) 241-5799
- In two cafés, dancers mingle with clients and transform their everyday movements into a choreographic language. Jessica Cumberbirch, Elinor Fueter, Isabel Mohn, Montreal. Telephone: (514) 276-8525
- A band of storytellers and merrymakers travel by bus, stopping in a few municipalities. After a town crier attracts the public's attention, the group sings some songs and a caller leads them in a feverish square-dance. Centre local de développement (CLD) Papineau, Chénéville. Telephone: (819) 427-6400
- An author reads three of his novels in locations that inspired them. He begins reading at dawn, on the mountain, then walks, accompanied by the public, to each of the chosen locations to continue his reading. He invites well-known artists to answer the question: "Can art still change the world?" Gilbert Dupuis, Montreal. Telephone: (514) 733-8566
- Actors perform a play and recite poetry in the intimacy of two homes. The homeowners invite their neighbors and the public to attend the play. Studio-Théâtre da Silva, Ste-Sophie. Telephone: (450) 432-6910
- "La parade d'accordéon" (The Accordion Parade): Musicians invite citizens to march to the beat of their rhythmic, musical parade recalling the history of the diatonic accordion and the life of the famous turn-of-the-century accordion player, Alfred Montmarquette. Société pour la promotion de la danse traditionnelle québécoise, Montreal. Telephone: (514) 273-0880
- An artist involves the entire community in producing paintings. He sets up his canvasses on a trailer and ventures out in this unusual caravan to meet his fellow citizens. He knocks on all the doors of the village and invites people to paint something on these collective works. Liguori Vachon, Les Coteaux. Telephone: (450) 267-4218
- Creators supervise the construction of a labyrinth whose walls are made of boxes painted and decorated by visitors. Singers, storytellers, and musicians cheer them on. At the end of the evening, the participants, dressed in white, venture into the collective piece. Other activities under the stars are planned. Comité des arts et de la culture de Ste-Julienne. Telephone: (450) 834-5572
- Territoire Artistique Contemporain Interculturel (TACI): a multidisciplinary event and outdoor theatre intervention. In order to create a new territory, actors dressed as tollbooth agents block the entrance to both the MAI and Jeanne-Mance Street. In order to get by the tollbooth, visitors must do something to show their artistic talent. MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels), Ensemble Sauvage Public, Montreal. Telephone: (514) 982-1812
Reaching out to the marginalized
Because we want to reach the largest number of people possible, we encourage you to invite an organization that works with those on the fringes of society to become associated with your activity during Journées de la culture. Visit www.msss.gouv.qc.ca/reseau to find out more about the organizations in your area.
In 2004, the Secretariat of Journées de la culture launched an invitation to all production partners to develop ties with the socio-community sector in order to make arts and culture more accessible to people who rarely come in contact with them. Over one hundred organizations answered our call and reached out to these organizations.
The registration period for the 2005 Journées de la culture is now over.
Thanks to everyone who filled our online form.