DNA Cabaret (May 14th, L’Astral, 305 rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest, Montreal)

On May 14th, over a hundred people joined us for a live cinema screening of The National Film Board of Canada’s ’360 degree’ Emmy-winning web documentary HIGHRISE/Out My Window (directed by Katerina Cizek), with a live music soundtrack improvised by Sam Shalabi, Will Eizlini, and Alexandre St-Onge. This was followed by more cabaret antics MC’ed by performance artist Dayna McLeod featuring spoken word legend, Catherine Kidd, the operatic stylings of LiederWolf, the hilarious Mike Patterson, the sweet soothing voice of Julie Tamiko Manning, a formidable dance piece by Emilie Roberts, magical mysteries revealed by Lise Vigneault and Kathy Daehler and the delectable Lady Josephine! Montréal’s very own O-Positive closed the night with a live DJ set that rocked us to the core. Some people even danced.

It was a public event, but it was also part of Database | Narrative | Archive, an international symposium exploring Non-Linear Digital Storytelling, held at Concordia University, May 13-15, 2011.