Night Shift

The Night Shift… to make the feeling last

It’s getting late, but audiences at the Festival Voix d’Amériques (FVA) don’t want to go home. At least not yet. This year once again, the FVA offers night owls a wild and whacky poetry nightcap. Our host is the imposing Michel Vézina, editor, columnist, author, former circus artist and well-known Montreal personality.

Vézina will be backed by two musicians you might call the “pillars” of the Night Shift: gifted bassist Philippe Brault and virtuoso violinist Guido Del Fabbro, faithful sidemen for Pierre Lapointe, among other things. They’ll be going full out on electronics (you can listen all week and never hear the same note twice) except for Thursday, February 12, when the band will be the weirdly musical K.A.N.T.N.A.G.A.N.O. (Jonathan Parant, Alexandre St-Onge and Alexander Wilson).

Our house musicians don’t bat an eyelid. They’ve seen it all, working their magic at the FVA since 2006 with invited guests and the bold unknowns who venture up to the mic. Expect surprises, action and sheer pluck in these two-part evenings. We are talking night shift, and no one’s the least bit tired!

One more surprising bit of news for these surprising economic times: the $3 ticket is gone. Night Shifts are now free of charge!

11 pm — 11:30 pm: Poets, your papers please!

Each Night Shift opens with two invited guest artists (poets, writers or performers) who deliver their texts with support from our in-house instrumentals. New voices on the roster include Véronique Cyr, Robert Berrouet Oriol, Shin’Uet, Élizabeth Robert, Moe Clark, Kary Ann Deer, Marie Davidson and Marie-Paule Grimaldi; they will join familiar names such as Serge Lamothe, Réjean Thomas, Yvon Jean and Suzanne Clément—yes! the beloved actor, who has agreed to join the “beau risque” and read from her own work.

Worth noting: On February 9, we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Herbes Rouges with guest Roger Des Roches. Des Roches is last November’s winner of the poets’ choice award, the Prix Chasse-Spleen, for his collection dixhuitjuilletdeuxmillequatre. The Prix Chasse-Spleen was created by the poetry community to recognize a work of poetry that has won no prizes but they consider essential.

At 11:30 pm, it’s the FVA’s legendary Open Mic

After the first half hour of featured guest artists, we hand the mic over to the audience. The known, the unknown, and the soon-to-be-known perform their own prose, poems or songs in English, French or any other language. But! It has to be their own work. No hiding behind Leonard Cohen or Tanya Davis (like we wouldn’t notice!). Performers have three minutes to do their stuff, with the moral and instrumental support of the house band. We did say three minutes, and Michel Vézina will be on the case. Did we mention he used to be a fire-eater?

Registration starts at 10 pm on the day of, at the Casa del Popolo (see the host). Register early, space is limited.