FESTIVAL ACCÈS ASIE to Present 27th Edition This May

Festival Accès Asie reveals its 27th edition which will take place during the month of May, Asian heritage month in Canada. From May 5 to 29, 19 activities with more than 80 artists of Asian origin will be offered in Montreal venues to kick off a season that promises to be exceptional!

To start the festivities, an Opening Cocktail will be held on Thursday, May 5 at 5 p.m. at the Conseil des arts de Montréal. A red carpet, appetizers, cocktails, music, and artistic performances are all on the menu! This joyful evening will be hosted by the talented actress Chloé Barshee, who will introduce you to a musical performance by Moe Clark and circus performance by Trinh Trà My.

For children and adults alike, the Festival Accès Asie offers you throughout the Festival period the opportunity to follow an origami workshop directly from your home. With your family, follow the instructions of Japanese artist Yuki Isami and young Rastin and make your own bird sculptures!

Discover two art exhibitions throughout the month of May. The first is entitled Fertile Land, on the theme of cultural (up)rooting through a botanical, poetic, and delicate fantasy, organized by the online art gallery Artasiam and hosted by the Maison de la culture Côte-des-Neiges. The second exhibition, Asian Horror & Cynicism at the Maison de la culture Janine-Sutto, invites the public to an alternative, dark, and macabre universe presented by three emerging Asian artists.

In this first week, you can also attend the evening of short films From Tokyo to Montréal, a screening of cinematographic works from Japan in collaboration with Image Forum on Friday, May 6 at 8 p.m. at Le Gesù.

On Thursday, May 12 at 8 p.m., in collaboration with Le Vivier, discover Pendulum in the Mirror, classical pieces by pioneering composers from Canada and Japan, showcasing a variety of tones and colors of instruments presented by the Duo Ventapane (Martin Karlicek on the piano and Mana Shiraishi on the violin), along with mezzo-soprano Marie-Annick Béliveau at Jeunesses Musicales Canada.

On May 13 and 14 at Gesù, Festival Accès Asie, in collaboration with Teesri Duniya Theatre, presents the "Fireworks Play Readings" program with two evenings of theatrical plays readings. It's an opportunity to hear two different stories from female Asian creators, Julie Phan and Marjorie Chan, exploring the realities of modern life at the intersections of gender, race and class.

On Saturday, May 14 at 2 p.m., the artist-run center OBORO and Festival Accès Asie are joining forces once again as part of the Intervalles residency program, to present Water and Dreams, a meditative and participatory surround sound project by Lina Choi.

In the evening, take advantage of our collaboration with the Kabir Center to discover traditional Qawwali music with Mystic Music From Pakistan with the ensemble of Abdullah Niazi at Auditorium of the Grande Bibliothèque, at 8 p.m. Qawwali is a form of devotional singing, originating from the Indian subcontinent.

To end this third week of activity, join us Sunday, May 15 at 2 p.m. at the Restaurant Om for Delight your taste buds, presented by Zolzaya Bold, director of the Mongolia Canada association, who will present a culinary and cultural mediation through Mongolian cuisine.

On Thursday, May 19 and Friday, May 20, Festival Accès Asie invites you to an interdisciplinary performance that includes storytelling, spoken word, live psychedelic rock fusion music, and video with Himmat Singh Shinhat and his solo work PANJ, at 8 p.m. at MAI. PANJ follows the journey of Himmat's Punjabi Sikh family from the aftermath of the decolonisation of the British Empire to the emergence of Himmat's identity.

From 9 p.m. on Friday May 20, join us at Centre PHI for Night in the Transpacific Express, a summer night showcase, with resident DJs NGL Flounce and Frantz Lin of Transpacific Express collective and special guest Mollygum. Transpacific Express is a Montréal-based promotional and curatorial collective dedicated to bringing the best of global Asian city pop, hip-hop, neo K-pop, R&B, and house music to dance floors in Canada.

On Saturday, May 21, you will have 24 hours to watch the children's play The Path of Dreams from Motus, where we follow the story of Ashini who returns to spend the summer holidays in the community where he lived his first years. Since his kukum (his grandmother) died and he lives in the city, he no longer recognizes his belonging to his Innu culture.

On Sunday, May 22 from 9 p.m. at La Sala Rossa, Festival Accès Asie is joining forces with the launch of the Suoni Per Il Popolo 2022 Festival to present an evening of electronic sounds by emerging artists from the duo Mue and Desert Bloom and celebrate Asian Heritage Month together.

For the last week of activities, join us on Thursday, May 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the Conservatoire d'art dramatique to attend a double program of contemporary dance. Double Tigers is a meeting between Montreal-based dancer Claudia Chan Tak and Toronto-based dancer Naishi Wang. Both were born in 1986, the year of the tiger according to the Chinese zodiac. They share the same cultural background, yet at the same time everything separates and distinguishes them. In the opening act, Misheel Ganbold will present Od-Sor, "shining star" in Mongolian, her contemporary dance solo.

On Friday May 27, still at the Conservatoire d'art dramatique and on the theme of contemporary dance, discover Unexpected Path, a collaborative program between the Festival Accès Asie and the Dance West Network, based in Vancouver. Three emerging Asian-Canadian dance artists share their creative journeys in this evening of performance: Shion Skye Carter and Eric Cheung from Vancouver and Kristy Janvier from Manitoba, bringing their artistic practices and reflections into our current ever-shifting context onstage.

For a second edition, the Festival revives On the Move: National Asian Heritage Celebration, a national showcase bringing together a collective program from four Canadian cities to celebrate Asian Heritage Month. The online event will be hosted on May 28 at 8 p.m. by the Asian Heritage Society of Manitoba, in co-presentation with the Festival Accès Asie, the Asian Heritage Month Society of Vancouver and artists from Edmonton. This national program brings together artists working in the dance, music, and multidisciplinary arts.

To close the 27th edition of Festival Accès Asie, you are invited on Sunday, May 29 from 2 p.m. at Parc Lahaie to come and celebrate by music and dance! Artists Michelle Jiang and Aurore Liang will introduce you to Peking opera, an elite discipline of Chinese art. You can also discover, in collaboration with the Kabir Center, a traditional Bollywood dance show that exudes the joy and wonders of Indian dance with the artist Amrita Choudhury. These shows will be followed by workshops for the general public so that you can in turn take part in the show.

Program and tickets for the 27th edition, available on April 4 2022 on our website accesasie.com.

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