La Bacchanale: The Art of Daring

I love electronic music, especially when it is democratic. Last April, I experienced for the first time an evening orchestrated by the collective La Bacchanale, which was born in September 2012. It was love at first sight. Afterward, my desire to know the minds behind the group became obvious. On

a grey afternoon, I met Martin, one of La Bacchanale’s co-founders. He toldme a story that began in a very random and ordinary way: friends, a birthday and an evening gathering more than a hundred people. For them, launching this entrepreneurial project was a risk. Two years later, the risk is still there, but so are the beautiful

stories.

La

Bacchanale defines itself as a spirit, Martin tells me. Wanting to go against the culture of impersonality that prevails in the traditional nightclub, their credo is to provide an interactive and immersive experience built around values they care about: freedom, equality and respect for everyone around one love, electronic music. They want to create a community that feels at ease in a shared atmosphere that appreciates art in all its

forms.

The visual accompaniment is crucial and contributes to the group’s nonconformist image. Several Montréal venues have been taken over by the imagination of their guests, including Fonderie Darling, the former Kanal Bar and Club Soda.We remember Immersion, where Théâtre Telus became a forest, a real one. Soon, the SAT will also be part of the story with their new project NOX, to be held

on June 28.

The creative process is ready to explode in underground venues, and their dream tends in that direction: to bring an unusual place to life, take it over completely and transform it into a bubbling journey lastingabout ten hours, a festival for one evening. This remains their guiding line. Montréal nightlife needs young spirits like theirs, and they are settling into it slowly but surely.

Without being naive, they know the path is uncertain, but their desire to introduce new artists, local or international, and their concern for coherence in a line-up customized for each evening, give La Bacchanale the right to aspire to a place in the scene. Martin speaks of breaking

down doors, in the image of Bacha, their elephant-headed mascot. Today, five of them invest themselves in this lifestyle: co-founders Martin and Victor, Adrien, whohandles conceptualization and booking, François in production, and Jérôme, who works on technical marketing aspects.

A fine little family. A La Bacchanale experience is an escape, a moment outside time and space in which you truly feel you are participating in something beautiful and meaningful. As Martin L. says, it is about forgetting

 everything for a few hours. What they create is made with hands and heart.