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A STAGE FOR REBELLION
Bouchra Khalili, The Tempest Society, 2017. Installation view of the exhibition A Stage for Rebellion curated by Julia Eilers Smith at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023. Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Photo: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Installation view of the exhibition A Stage for Rebellion curated by Julia Eilers Smith at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023. Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Photo: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Clara Ianni, Repetições (Repetitions), 2017–2018. Installation view of the exhibition A Stage for Rebellion curated by Julia Eilers Smith at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023. Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Photo: Jean-Michael Seminaro
The Living and the Dead Ensemble, The Wake, 2019 - ongoing. Installation view of the exhibition A Stage for Rebellion curated by Julia Eilers Smith at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023. Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Photo: Jean-Michael Seminaro
The Living and the Dead Ensemble, The Wake, 2019 - ongoing. Installation view of the exhibition A Stage for Rebellion curated by Julia Eilers Smith at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023. Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Photo: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, El Corazón del espantapájaros (The Heart of a Sczrecrow), 2015. Installation view of the exhibition A Stage for Rebellion curated by Julia Eilers Smith at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023. Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Photo: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Lugar de Consuelo (Place of Solace), 2020. Installation view of the exhibition A Stage for Rebellion curated by Julia Eilers Smith at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023. Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Photo: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Bouchra Khalili, The Tempest Society, 2017. Installation view of the exhibition A Stage for Rebellion curated by Julia Eilers Smith at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023. Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Photo: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Onyeka Igwe, History is an endless play, 2023. Installation view of the exhibition A Stage for Rebellion curated by Julia Eilers Smith at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023. Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Photo: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Amol K Patil, Many Kilometres, 2019-2023. Installation view of the exhibition A Stage for Rebellion curated by Julia Eilers Smith at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023. Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Photo: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Ashes Withyman, The Horns and Flutes of Saturnalia persist with both expensive and quite cheap gifts, including writing tablets, dice, knucklebones, money boxes, combs, toothpicks, a hat, a hunting knife, an axe, various lamps, balls, perfumes, pipes, a pig, a sausage, a parrot, tables, cups, spoons, items of clothing, statues, masks, books, and pets, 2023. From the series The Neanderthalish Proberbs. Installation view of the exhibition A Stage for Rebellion curated by Julia Eilers Smith at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023. Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Photo: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Ashes Withyman, Da Mihi Crustulum (Tambourine), 2023. From the series The Neanderthalish Proberbs. Installation view of the exhibition A Stage for Rebellion curated by Julia Eilers Smith at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023. Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Photo: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Ashes Withyman, Placard #2 (Parliament pamper'd and clarified their zeal with marrow-puddings many a mean and crammed em till their guts did each with Cawdle-Custard and Plumb-Cake), 2023. From the series The Neanderthalish Proberbs. Installation view of the exhibition A Stage for Rebellion curated by Julia Eilers Smith at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023. Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Photo: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Open

November 18, 2023 – January 27, 2024

A Stage for Rebellion

Curator : Julia Eilers Smith

With Wingston González, Clara Ianni, Onyeka Igwe, Amol K Patil, Bouchra Khalili, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, The Living and the Dead Ensemble, and Ashes Withyman

Opening on November 18, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

A Stage for Rebellion brings together contemporary artists who look back on the grassroots and radical theatre traditions of the twentieth century that served revolutionary struggles. By echoing their political demands and revisiting plays and actions that have faded from history, the artists draw into the present the emancipatory project of these theatre movements, examining it in the face of the political issues of our time.

This exhibition brings to light a range of groups and instances of protest theatre, from the militant performances of São Paulo’s Arena to traveling medieval troupes as precursors to contemporary radical street theatre. We also find the Arab Workers Movement’s agitprop in France, a university theatre group during the civil war in Guatemala, theatre serving anticolonial movements in the UK and working-class resistance in India, and, finally, an artists’ collective in Port-au-Prince taking hold of theatre to amplify their cries of revolt. Not simply performing or representing rebellion, these different movements instead inscribed their struggles into reality at the very moment that it took shape.

To resurrect these dissident voices from the past, the artists in A Stage for Rebellion meet with protagonists of the time, exhume archives when they exist, visit the places where their ideas and actions were born, or fill in—through rewriting and imagination—the gaps in official history, time, and memories. The works presented in this exhibition also renew the poetic and subversive scope of political theatre, reactivating methods of resistance, protest, and consciousness-raising to rethink today’s collective struggles.

A Stage for Rebellion brings together contemporary artists who look back on the grassroots and radical theatre traditions of the twentieth century that served revolutionary struggles. By echoing their political demands and revisiting plays and actions that have faded from history, the artists draw into the present the emancipatory project of these theatre movements, examining it in the face of the political issues of our time.

This exhibition brings to light a range of groups and instances of protest theatre, from the militant performances of São Paulo’s Arena to traveling medieval troupes as precursors to contemporary radical street theatre. We also find the Arab Workers Movement’s agitprop in France, a university theatre group during the civil war in Guatemala, theatre serving anticolonial movements in the UK and working-class resistance in India, and, finally, an artists’ collective in Port-au-Prince taking hold of theatre to amplify their cries of revolt. Not simply performing or representing rebellion, these different movements instead inscribed their struggles into reality at the very moment that it took shape.

To resurrect these dissident voices from the past, the artists in A Stage for Rebellion meet with protagonists of the time, exhume archives when they exist, visit the places where their ideas and actions were born, or fill in—through rewriting and imagination—the gaps in official history, time, and memories. The works presented in this exhibition also renew the poetic and subversive scope of political theatre, reactivating methods of resistance, protest, and consciousness-raising to rethink today’s collective struggles.