Your September 2014 To Dos

School is back and so is the frenetic fall schedule in this city bursting with arts and culture. So crack open your fresh notebooks, and note down these things to do!

Start the month off with a good dose of the unexpected with the Escales Improbables festival, a performance festival which until September 11 will take visitors on adventures all around the city.

See the world’s best photos – we’re talking the top 150 out of the 98,000 submitted entries – at the annual Montreal World Press Photo Exhibition at Marché Bonsecours, until September 28.

Get your tummy ready: from September 1 to 7, it’s Le Burger Week! Restaurants across town try to outdo themselves as hundred, nay thousands, of ravenous meat eaters munch on patties of all shapes and sizes.

The outdoor celebrations of Piknic Électronique continue all month, culminating into a final party on September 21, featuring A.B.U.Z., Joachim Pastor and Sébastien Léger, among others.

September 4, 5 and 6, join the party along St-Denis and in the Quartier des Spectacles with OUMF, a free festival of film, dance, comedy, sports, visual arts and live music, including shows by BADBADNOTGOOD, Misteur Vallaire and Poirier.

Starting September 5, Espace pour la vie at the Montreal Botanical Gardens gets an added shot of magic during the Gardens of Light event, which last all fall. See your favourite trails come to life at night with lanterns so creatively crafted, they’ll blow your mind.

Bonkers for bivalves? Slurp your way through the 50-plus participating restaurants and suppliers at Montreal’s Oysterfest on the weekend of September 6 and 7. All proceeds go towards aquatic sustainability.

Don’t miss the last of the Rendez-vous des Grands Orchestres series on the Esplanade of the Olympic Stadium, on Sundays September 14 and 21, when world-class musical shows are presented for free form 4 to 5:30 pm.

Get in character (literally) for the Montreal ComicCon, September 12 to 14, at the Palais des Congrès. This year’s highlights include a visit from Levar Burton, Gates McFadden and Denise Crosby (or Geordi Laforge, Dr. Beverly Crusher and Tasha Yar, as Star Trek: The Next Generation lovers know them).

Contemporary dance spills out into Montreal’s neighbourhoods from September 12 to 20 thanks to the Quartiers Danses Festival, which seeks to bring dance to new audiences. Don’t miss the opening night at Gesù amphitheatre, featuring Randy Glynn and The Company of Angels.

The streets of Mile End and beyond are the place to be from September 17 to 21, for another edition of Pop Montreal.  This year there’s The Unicorns, Trust, Timber Timbre… and the list keeps growing!

From September 18 to 27, the Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal launches a production of Leonce and Lena by Christian Spuck, a German-style Vaudevillian romp full of political satire.

Don’t miss the opening of a new show for the Opéra de Montréal, which from September 20 to 27 presents Verdi’s Nabucco, a story of heartbreak and betrayal. (Well, it is opera.)

The Montreal International Black Film Festival brings a quality program of films to the silver screen from September 23 to 28 that Montrealers might not otherwise have the chance to see, not to mention a space for cultural exploration and debate.

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