Pique, Ottawa’s newest groundbreaking art and music festival, has come into its own.
Produced by Debaser, the city's leading independent and underground presenter, the season-closer of Pique once again brings visionary, artist-driven programming to the Arts Court and the Ottawa Art Gallery on December 10th, 2022.
Pique’s 2022 winter edition will feature live music & audio-visual performances, DJ sets, visual art installations, a vendor market, artist workshops & panels, across four stages and three floors.
Entry is PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN with a suggested donation of $20-$40 from 1pm to 2am.
Visit thisispique.com for more info.
FEATURING...
PERFORMING ARTS PROGRAM
☆curated by Laylit
TOPIQUE: Symposium for the exchange of ideas in music and art
Topique is a symposium for the exchange of ideas in music and art, presented as part of the forward-thinking, artist-driven festival series Pique. At the winter edition on December 10, the Topique program will gather cultural leaders and emergent voices to offer new ideas, alternative models, and radical approaches in the music industry, contemporary art and performance practices.
FREE to attend. Registration is required. REGISTER HERE.
SPEAKERS AND FACILITATORS:
Andi Vicente
Ceréna
Méchant Vaporwave
City Fidelia
Eman Safadi
James Goddard
View the full program here.
Thank you to our producing partners at the Ottawa Music Industry Coalition, and to our funders and supporters: Ontario Creates, City of Ottawa, Arts Court, Ottawa Fringe, and Kilam Media.
ART MARKET
An arts-focused vendor market featuring some of Ottawa's most original artisans and makers. With arts, crafts, zines, food, wearables, and more! Support local creators while doing your holiday shopping. Check out the artisans and vendors here
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Pique takes place on the stolen land of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people. If you support our programming, please consider also donating to a local Indigenous organization or fundraiser. Learn more about this land acknowledgement and find educational resources and ways to support at www.debaser.ca/land-acknowledgement
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Please note the following health and safety policies that apply to audience members at Pique winter edition:
Wear a mask over the mouth and nose at all times when not eating, drinking or performing. Free KN94 masks will be available to audience members while supplies last.
Wash and sanitize your hands often. Hand sanitizer will be placed at all box offices, bars, merch tables, food vendor area, and in large supply around the event.
Before attending the event, please do a self-assessment of your health. Are you experiencing symptoms of any communicable virus or illness? If yes, please do not come to the event site.
For your information, we will also be taking the following measures to prevent the spread of infection:
HEPA air filtration units designed for larger rooms will be placed in Club SAW, the Studio and the Alma Duncan salon.
Signage reminding people to wear a mask will be placed in all venues, at bars, merch tables, and box offices.
Stage crews will be supplied with disinfectant wipes/spray and asked to sanitize microphones between performances.
Free COVID-19 rapid tests for any artist, worker or volunteer available on request, while supplies last.
For any artist or worker who must cancel their participation in the event due to a confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19, Debaser will honour 50% of their agreed-upon payment. If there are any artist cancellations related to COVID-19 or another infectious illness, we ask that audience members keep in mind our policy to honour 50% of payments when considering making a refund request.
Attendees are expected to respect one another. Violence, aggression, oppressive behaviour or language, or bullying will not be tolerated. If you are currently implicated in an accountability process, please ensure you are respecting the space and well-being of those your actions have affected before joining this space virtually or in-person. If Debaser's staff and/or Board are made aware of any behaviour that violates our safety policy, the person(s) perpetuating this behaviour will be asked to leave immediately. We reserve the right to intervene and/or remove ANY person(s) in the space who are creating or contributing to an unsafe environment.
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Entrances are accessible by ramp, and indoor spaces are accessible by automated doors and elevator to all floors. Wheelchair accessible, gender neutral washrooms are available throughout the building.
Click the following links for accessibility and visitor information:
Thank you to our Sponsors and Partners:
Canada Council for the Arts, Government of Canada, Government of Ontario, City of Ottawa, Ontario Arts Council, SOCAN Foundation, Arts Court, SAW, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa Fringe, Ottawa Music Industry Coalition, Digital Arts Resource Centre (DARC), ODD, Apt613, Artengine, Dominion City Brewing Co., Kilam Media, Wall Sound, CKCU, and CHUO.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Cartel Madras
Cartel Madras are an experimental hip-hop duo comprised of sisters Eboshi and Contra. Born in Chennai. in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and raised in Calgary, Canada their music is a cultural syncretism; a heady mix of trap, punk ,and house.
Known for their live performance style; explosive and aggressive, Cartel Madras delivers their music by combining elements of the underground trap, queer, and punk scene - a new sound that has been anointed ‘goonda rap’. It is through word of mouth that followed their first year of performing in 2018 that their rise has been so quick. Their music is radical, racy, and truly unique in the contemporary international hip hop landscape.
Fresh off their North American tour with Sudan Archives in 2020, Cartel’s international tour dates were cut short due to COVID19, since then they have released their third EP The Serpent and the Tiger featuring singles WORKING & DRIFT.
Pantayo
Pantayo is an all-women kulintang ensemble based in Toronto. They combine percussive metallophones and drums from kulintang traditions of Southern Philippines with electronic and synth-based grooves. They also offer music and cultural workshops to teach kulintang. Pantayo explores the possibility of kulintang through their experiences as queer diasporic Filipinas.
Bandcamp ~ Spotify ~ Instagram ~ Twitter ~ Facebook
photo credit: Sarah Bo
Marisa Gallemit
Marisa Gallemit (she/her | Ottawa) – is a Filipina-Canadian visual artist. Informed by motherhood and third culture rituals, her work spans sculpture, assemblage, site-specific installation, storytelling, and arts advocacy. Since 2009 Marisa has been active in Ontario and Quebec with performative works, design installations for music + art festivals and art-making workshops; she has curated visual art programs for several non-gallery venues in Ottawa, and has produced a large-scale public art installation for the City of Mississauga. Through an ongoing exploration of found objects and potential energy, Gallemit’s practice leans deeply into Buckminster Fuller’s query: “Now how do we make this spaceship work?”
photo credit: Pedro Isztin
Laylit
Laylit is a platform and collective celebrating music and artists from the Arab/SWANA region and its diaspora. Over the last four years their dance parties in New York City and Montreal have carved out an unmatched place in North American nightlife, becoming an anticipated social gathering and unique musical experience.
Each party takes you on a genre-spanning journey, highlighting the incredible musical diversity, depth and richness that comes out of the region. Laylit has established its place on the scene with a signature electronic sound blending shaabi, dabke, mahraganat, Arabic pop and hip-hop with contemporary, boundary pushing dance music inspired by New York and Montreal’s thriving underground clubs.
“[...] each event also looks toward the future, be it through challenging stereotypical notions of Middle Eastern culture or by championing inclusivity and progressive ideals.”
-New York Times (read more here)
SoundCloud ~ Spotify ~ Newsletter ~ Instagram ~ Facebook
JJJJJerome Ellis
JJJJJerome Ellis is an animal, stutterer, and artist. He was raised by Jamaican and Grenadian immigrants in Tidewater, VA, where he prays, gardens, and resides among the egrets and asters. Through music, literature, performance, and video he researches relationships among blackness, disabled speech, divinity, nature, sound, and time. He dreams of building a sonic bath house!
Lia Kloud
A spiritual being with a fearless attitude on the beat, Lia Kloud is a rising hip-hop star who has a talent for creating infectious atmospheres of positive energy while maintaining a level of mystery through her music. Raised in Ottawa's south end, the music she creates reflects on her environment as a youth, and discovering herself as a young adult.
Lia is forever unapologetically advancing her sound with determination, and aims to connect people through her stories while remaining humble and true to herself. This marks only the beginning for Lia Kloud, who is ready to take over the industry by storm.
Youtube ~ Instagram ~ SoundCloud ~ Spotify
Wake Island
Wake Island is an electronic producer duo originally from Beirut and now based in Montreal. Through their various projects, they attempt to reconcile their Arab roots with their North American lives, infusing Middle-Eastern sounds with contemporary, boundary pushing dance music. Their DJ sets offer a fresh perspective on Arabic music, blending some of the most innovative electronic tracks with more traditional popular songs and old/rare cuts. In 2018, they co-founded Laylit, a NYC-based monthly party that celebrates the diversity of music and artists from the Arab/SWANA region and its diasporas. Laylit is now touring many cities in the US and Canada.
Halal Bae
Halal Bae uses her platform and performances to celebrate queer culture and as a dragtavist, critiquing current social constructs and issues facing our community. She has starred in a variety of Shows including Canada's Drag Race, Pride Toronto, multiple fundraising shows for HIV awareness, raising over 10k for the community.
She is also a queer producer. Being the mother of Halal Haus, the creator and producer of Living in Colour (a monthly show celebrating QPOC talent in Toronto), Founder and Executive Director of Passion Fruit (an all gender queer safe sex party).
A Muslim-born North African Queen, she is known for her signature aesthetic and stache drag, conceptual performances and comedic hosting, Halal Bae is fully rounded artist.
skin tone
skin tone uses voice, saxophone, mbira and electronics to create space for reflection.
Markus Floats
Montreal based musician Markus Lake uses his laptop to improvise delicate and complex soundscapes combining digital synthesis and live signal processing techniques. Since his 2011 debut EP for Dream Sequence, Lake's recorded work has explored various themes through a constantly expanding palette of digital instruments. Live, Markus combines his soundscapes with samples from the black literary canon. Lake’s latest release ‘Third Album’ was released by Constellation Records in March 2020. He is an Electroacoustics graduate from Concordia University who has also played bass in Montreal bands Egyptian Cotton Arkestra, Elle Barbara’s Black Space, Sheer Agony, Silver Dapple, Hand Cream as well as lending his voice to the short-lived punk band, Neighbour’s Guitar.
TRP.P
TRP.P (pronounced “TRIP-ee”) is a Toronto duo, breaking barriers in the Hip-Hop/R&B scene. Composed of Truss (producer, singer/songwriter) and Phoenix Pagliacci (singer/songwriter), the dynamic duo met in 2015 and have been collaborating in music and life ever since. In 2017, they released their self-titled debut EP, followed with their sophomore release 2TRP.P. in 2019. Their modern twist on 80’s/90’s inspired R&B gives way to powerful lyrics, which often champion queer love, justice and their communities. TRP.P released their latest album, "Mirror Soul" in June of 2022.
DJ Fatin
DJ Fatin (she/her), pronounced FA-tin, is a Brooklyn-bred freelance Palestinian woman DJ, who has recently celebrated over 13 years entertaining as a DJ within the Arab community and beyond! She specializes in weddings and other celebratory events and has served a vastly diverse clientele locally and globally. Her passions transcend music; she also loves dancing salsa and is a language enthusiast.
Website ~ Twitter ~ Youtube ~ Instagram
Andi Vicente
Andi is a visual artist currently based in Tiotià:ke/Montreal. Through installation and digital collage, they’ve explored intersectional identities, precarious livelihoods and the juxtaposition of movements. Andi aims to broaden an understanding of oppressed experiences and encourage collective empowerment through the answering of the questions “Who is not here with us and how can I be there for you?”
Kristina Corre
Kristina Corre is a Philippine-born Canadian citizen. For Kristina, art matters as a means of connection. In recent years her practice has been a means to connect not only to her roots, but to ongoing movements in imagining and bringing about decolonized futures from the 7000 islands of the Philippine archipelago to the places she now calls home on Turtle Island. Beyond representation and taking up space, she's interested in how we connect and relate to one another.
Formally trained in architecture, Kristina has long been using art to imagine new worlds. Currently her practice also includes curation, photography, daydreaming, editorial and commissioned works, and arts administration.
Mailyne K. Briggs
Mailyne K. Briggs (she/her) is a visual artist, writer, filmmaker and owner of Kilam Media.
In a constant state of ebb and flow, Mailyne pulls inspiration from a place of reflection and growth, exploring answers to the question, “how can we become the best version of ourselves?” in a world that tries to divide and disconnect us.
She combines different mediums, experimenting with ways of creating that intersect stillness, nature and emotions with the reimagining of better futures for and with the communities she’s part of. Through art and storytelling, Mailyne tries to unfold difficult stories and challenging life experiences with playfulness, softness and sincerity.
Achraf El Abed
From street jazz to modern jazz, on through contemporary dance and voguing, Achraf has developed a wide range of expression and a depth of knowledge in various dance styles, but remains loyal to a uniquely feminine Tunisian form of dance.
Achraf has performed for several shows including: “Lasmer Tounsi” by Mounier El Argui, “Nouba” by Fadhel El Jaziri, and was the co-choreographer and a dancer in ‘Zine et Aziz’. In 2019, Achraf produced his own show ‘Howa Walla Heya’ for the opening ceremonies of the Mawjoudin Queer Film Festival. He has also performed as a dancer in ‘Erboukh’ and ‘Disco El Arabi.’ And now on to new Canadian adventures.
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Achraf el abed, designer produit de formation, danseur de passion.
Du street jazz au modern jazz en passant par la danse contemporaine et le voguing ... Achraf diversifie ses champs de connaissance dans la danse mais reste fidèle à la danse populaire Tunisienne féminine et l'oriental.
Ayant une expérience dans plusieurs spectacles "Lasmer Tounsi " de Mounir el argui, "Nouba" de Fadhel El Jaziri, il a été le co-choregaphe et danseur dans zine et aziz. En 2019 il a créé son propre spectacle ‘howa Walla heya’ et c'était à la cérémonie de l'ouverture de mawjoudin queer film festival.
Aussi le danseur de spectacle Erboukh.
Et enfin avec le spectacle "Disco el arabi".
Et maintenant au Canada nouvelle aventure.
Joyce Joumaa
Joyce Joumaa is a video artist based in Montreal. After growing up in Tripoli, Lebanon, she pursued her studies in film in Montreal. Her work portrays elements from the political landscape in Lebanon. She has shown at the Museum of Fine Arts, FOFA Gallery and Dazibao.