It’s been 32 years now that the Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur (FASS) – Saint Sauveur Festival of the Arts – has devoted itself to the discovery and to the spreading of cultural awareness of the best choreographers, dancers and musicians from here and around the world. This 2023 event, which takes place from July 26 to August 6, is no exception.

FASS has become the biggest summer dance event in the country, as much for the number of major shows it offers as for the size of the audience group. Guillaume Côté, FASS artistic director, has even decided to lengthen the program of this year’s event by one day and one performance.

Hamlet: a promising collaboration

Hamlet, FASS’s opening show, has been co-created by Guillaume Côté, who did the choreography, and by none other than Robert Lepage, who did the production. “[…] You will be the first to see the first draft of a version of Hamlet on which I worked with the extraordinary director and man of theatre Robert Lepage, who is the producer.

Together, we have faced the challenge of tackling Shakespeare’s work through dance alone,” says the festival’s artistic director. Under the Grand chapiteau – the Big Top – on July 26, 27 and 28.

Top-level shows of this kind continue throughout the festival. Dance troupes from Los Angeles, Calgary, New York and Québec will head for Saint-Sauveur along with the Orchestre Métropolitain and stars from the Canadian National Ballet, the Staatsoper Berlin, the Norwegian National Ballet and the Boston Ballet.

It should be noted that the public is invited to take to Les sentiers de la danse – the dance trails – in the Parc John H. Molson to see free performances by exceptional artists. Projections of dance films at dusk, swing and salsa workshops and an urban dance competition are also back.

It’s well worth checking out the program: festivaldesarts.ca/calendrier

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