Compte à rebours - a dancing drumming tale

Friendships that lasts… unconditional, honest, creative, low maintenance, fun and kind! 

We kept in touch… we would say to each other: “One day, we’ll create a show together”… and one day… we did. The three of us go way back. We danced on many popular variety TV shows that seduced all of Quebec’s fans in the 70”s and early 80’s…. lots of gogo dancing.

This adventure started when I moved back to Montreal after spending 30 years in Toronto.  

Danielle Godin proposed the idea of adding two more characters to a project Carol Jones had originated, a true story based on one of the famous “criminals” in Montreal; Marie-Joseph Angélique who was accused of burning down part of Old Montreal. 

She suggested we each find a criminal. Hum…. that sounded like fun! 

So the legend “La Corriveau” accused of killing her second husband and Susan Kennedy, an Irish sex worker accused of beheading her best friend Mary Gallagher, were chosen to complete this trio of bad girls. 

We tell their stories through the eyes of the legend of the women who wash the clothes on river banks; “les lavandières”.  So history, women’s stories and justice, became “Conte à Rebours”. 

We researched these three women, (hello is this the Kingston Penn?) we wrote monologues, songs, spoken words. It’s a dramatic, percussive tale with humour, water and lots of dirty laundry. Sometimes we incarnate our criminals and sometimes we are the washer women. To this day we don’t know if they were wrongly accused, and neither does the audience!

To be working with my two dear friends has been rich and fulfilling. We have complete trust in each other, there are no bad ideas, we always say: “let’s try it”, which makes our complicity a perfect and harmonious energy on stage and off.

People who have seen our creation are deeply touched and disturbed and cannot get their heads around what is this “thing”. It’s not a musical, it’s not a play, it’s a dancing drumming tale. “Un conte” that stretches the imagination, looking at injustice, looking at what it took for women in those days to survive, to dare to dream. We have performed it in a few cultural house and are looking to more performances. If you want to book it, let me know. 

Here’s a teaser of the show: