Programming

As part of DARE-DARE’s Confluences residency, Marie-Hélène Massy Emond is living in the Sud-Ouest neighborhood for two months to develop her project This train_Saint-Henri.

This Train is first and foremost the title of a gospel song that became an American music standard, popularized in the 1930s by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, an icon of gospel and blues. The song tells of a holy, blessed train where no one chews tobacco or smokes, where no one cheats, and where everyone, from every nation, has a place.

Between this ideal and the reality of our neighborhoods, what are the sounds, the songs, the hymns of hope, struggle, and working-class life? What is the place of work in our lives? What is money? What is freedom? What makes us dance?

This Train is a suite composed around this symbol—this dream, these tracks, stations, cars, and locomotives. A sensitive exploration with those who have boarded the train of progress; who have filled it, who jump off, or who are crushed by its passage. The artist presents performative radio events every Saturday in public spaces, where testimonies from encounters with CÉDA users, sound recordings of the neighborhood’s waterways, and live spoken word pieces resonate within a vast tapestry of words that foster encounters between thoughts and realities.

On September 19 at 11 a.m., join us at Vinet Park (in front of the CÉDÀ) for one final live radio broadcast in front of an audience, during which you’re invited to speak, join the conversation, or simply listen.

About the residency

Back for its fourth year, the CONFLUENCES residency, a DARE-DARE initiative, aims to welcome an artist from outside Montreal for an 8-week stay each year, enabling them to explore and get to know the Sud-Ouest as a place to recharge their batteries and create. The artist is housed in an apartment provided by artist Douglas Scholes, a long-standing partner of DARE-DARE.

CONFLUENCES is a two-month residency program, during which a guest artist develops an original project nourished by the specific context of the neighbouring areas hosting DARE-DARE.

Marie-Hélène Massy Emond

Marie-Hélène Massy Emond is an artist whose practice is rooted in dialogue with place and the people who inhabit it. Drawing from Quebec’s singer-songwriter tradition, the performer, writer, and musician develops sound-based and performative works through extended instrumental techniques and field recording. She creates albums, concert-walks, and performances, and composes musical and sonic environments for theatre productions in Canada and Italy.

“Along the luminous path of her artistic journey emerges a storyteller-cellist and activist who performs for birds, for jack pines, and for the people who join her in singing songs for living.”