FACE RIDER @ MAI (Montreal, arts interculturels)

June 18-21, 2025
7:30 PM nightly at the MAI gallery MAI | Montréal, arts interculturels, 3680, rue Jeanne-Mance, suite 103 Montréal (Québec) (VIEW MAP)

Accessibility Info: All MAI spaces are accessible to people with reduced mobility (gallery, theater, café, studios, dressing rooms, toilets, offices).

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Montreal, May 2025 — MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels) is proud to present the Montreal premiere of FACE RIDER, an explosive collaboration between Tkaronto/Toronto-based artists Fran Chudnoff, Driftnote, and Angela Cabrera produced by Toronto Dance Theatre (TDT). The work will take place in the MAI gallery from June 18 to 21, 2025.

Following its debut as part of TDT’s Winter Double Bill at Winchester Street Theatre in Tkaronto/Toronto, FACE RIDER now makes its way to Montreal, where it promises to plunge audiences into a shimmering, sweat-slick world of gender deviance, resurrection, and collective mess.
Building on the iconography of the hermit, the hog, and the himbo, FACE RIDER is a queer indie sleaze swamp dump. This show is a slippery bog celebrating gender deviance, glittery resurrection, and live-laugh-loving the mess of togetherness. A performance reimagines the unsettling nature of aspirational imagery through the gloomy melodies of midwest emo, confessional lyrics, and the aesthetics of the unresolvable mundane.

Made in collaboration with multi-media artist Driftnote and fashion designer Angela Cabrera, FACE RIDER is a diver on the edge of a high board imagining its body missing a rotation and smacking through the waters of transformation – sincerity – energy – precision – mess – presence.

About The Artists

Photo by Krista Newey.

Fran Chudnoff

Fran Chudnoff also known as Franz (they/them), is a Tkaronto based millennial, with a BFA in performance, and paying rent as a multidisciplinary artist. They are a dance maker, video artist, photographer, and a true beginner when it comes to learning 3D modelling and digital illustration. Their work is in conversation with post internet aesthetics, gender deviance, and shaping a “social aura” through aspirational imagery.

In 2020, Fran completed a 3-year Emerging Artist research residency at Dancemakers Centre for Creation with Driftnote where together they began musical and visual research for FACE RIDER.

Their film “ALL THINGS GROW”, which was also in collaboration with Driftnote, is an official selection in the Regards Hybrides’ permanent Collection of Canadian screendance works. It is one of fifty-five short and long films produced between 1980 and 2020 that represent a wide range of cinechoreographic approaches.

Fran performs and tours in Andrew Tay and Stephen Thompson’s “MAKE BANANA CRY” – a subversive runway featuring a parade of body politics prepared to trouble the Western gaze.

Photo by Fran Chudnoff.

Driftnote

Omar David Rivero, also known as Driftnote, is a musician and multimedia artist born in Venezuela and currently based out of Tkaronto whose work is centered around improvisation, interactivity, audio and visual installations as well as 3D imaging. Rivero explores questions of materiality and embodiment when looking at systems, cultural erasure, and identity in the african/indigenous diaspora. Their research is situated in reassessing methodologies of image-making, archives, and self-portraiture.

Photo by Ivy Mazariegos.

Angela Cabrera

Angela Cabrera is a Latinx multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Colombia. Their design work is inspired by the spaces unattended by man and ruled over by natural evolution. Fashion is primarily their focus, evoking an enigmatic spirit that experiments with alien forms. They are a celestial soul that came from the forest and creates from the shadows.

Production Credits

Choreographed in collaboration with dancers, musicians and designers.
Produced by Toronto Dance Theatre.

Concept and Direction: Fran Chudnoff, Driftnote and Angela Cabrera
Lighting Designer: Chris Malkowski
Technical Director: Michael Wanless
Performers: Cal, Fran Chudnoff, Driftnote, Ryan Kostyniuk, Jessica Mak, Roberto Soria
Sound Designer: Driftnote
Costume Designer: Angela Cabrera
Costume Alterations by Val Calam
Big Silver Bow inspired by Kabuté World
Scenography: Fran Chudnoff, Sandra Chudnoff, Siwar Soria, Aden C. Altamirano
Artistic Support: Eroca Nicols, Siwar Soria