Katherine Wood Williams – The Concordian

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing,” said Irish political philosopher Edmund Burke in the 18th century. For Nadia Alexan, founder of the Montreal civic organization Citizens in Action, the words couldn’t ring truer today.

Alexan has been striving for social justice for over thirty years, and she doesn’t seem keen on stopping, “How can you see what’s happening and remain apathetic?” she asks.

During their monthly meeting, Tuesday Sept 10, Citizens in Action addressed Scandinavian prosperity. Guest speaker and UQAM doctoral researcher Pier-Luc Lévesque dissected Scandinavia’s socio-economic model while comparing it to Quebec’s. The goal was to find tools to improve the province’s own system. A crowd of mixed backgrounds and ages listened intently.

“What I want to do is to get people involved in the political process,” Alexan said. “First, you’ve got to understand the issues. Then, you’ve got to act. The mission of Citizens in Action is to fight for justice and good government in Canada.”

Alexan is passionate about what she does. She prints and hands out pamphlets, keeps her community informed about upcoming talks and protests, calls politicians about polemical issues and writes opinionated articles in local newspapers. When she talks about the matters that irk her she’s vociferous and doesn’t shy away from words like ‘disgraceful’ and ‘preposterous.’ With her bright attire, confidence and conviction, she’s a force to be reckoned with.

Two months after graduating from the University of Alexandria with a major in English literature, Alexan left Egypt and immigrated to Canada. She landed in Montreal in May of 1967. Her timing couldn’t have been better. “I loved it at that time, I loved Canada! I thought it was the most wonderful country in the world. People were talking to each other on the streets, the bus drivers were singing, the intellectuals were writing books and plays; René Levesque had nationalized electricity and a new Ministry of Education had just been formed…I get goosebumps when I think of those days because everybody seemed so happy,” Alexan recalled.

Alexan found a job teaching for Montreal’s English school board, a position she held for 30 years. In the 1980s, she attended a teacher’s conference in Toronto where something happened that changed her life. Maude Barlow — author, activist, and National Chairperson for the influential left-wing non-profit organization, The Council of Canadians (CC), — gave a speech.

Alexan was deeply moved by Barlow’s views and decided to start a CC chapter in Montreal.

For the following decade, Alexan organized CC conferences while teaching. She also earned two bachelor’s degrees: one in education from McGill, and another in political science from Concordia. In 2006, Alexan founded Citizens in Action to raise consciousness through popular education and lobby government in the public interest. “I’m the kind of person that, wherever I go — even at the Centaur theatre — I’ll pass the pamphlet,” she said.

Alexan explained her zeal by using a quote from British thinker Bertrand Russell: “Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”

Citizens in Action meetings are made possible thanks to the collaboration of Concordia’s Student Union and Concordia’s School of Community and Public Affairs. Conferences take place the second Tuesday of each month. For more information visit the group’s website at citizensinactionmontreal.org or email Alexan at nadia.alexan@videotron.ca

The Wiggle Room is decked-out with swanky leather booths, vintage cabaret tables, rich red velvet curtains lined with gold, tastefully exposed brick walls decorated with suggestive photos of local burlesque divas and a stage for live performances. Photo by Katherine Wood Williams.

On Sept. 3, Montreal’s first burlesque bar in decades, The Wiggle Room, opened on St. Laurent Blvd. Cocktails flowed on Tuesday night while a full-house enjoyed a modern vaudeville show with hilarious comedians and burlesque performers engaging an intimate audience.

The bar’s owner is Montreal performing arts guru, Jeremy Hechtman, 42, who was just a wee boy when he saw his first striptease. “I remember being nine years old, sitting at the bar in the strip club, eating a big plate of spaghetti dinner and watching her come out in a little red riding hood outfit,” he reminisced in an interview in his bar on Wednesday.

Hechtman was born in the Bronx to a Russian immigrant mother and an American father who dodged the Vietnam War draft by moving his family to Montreal. Hechtman Sr. became a devout patron of his new city’s notoriously debauched night clubs of the ‘60s and ‘70s, in which playful strippers accompanied comedians, musicians and MC’s in live vaudeville shows. He became close friends with a local stripper, Lindalee Tracey, whose comical performances were some of the last remaining vestiges of Montreal’s golden Jazz Age. Together they organized the Tits for Tots’ fundraiser, a series of stripteases to raise money for the Montreal Children’s Hospital. It was at such an event that nine-year-old Hechtman, already privy to all of his father’s late-night adventures, got his first taste of burlesque.

By age 14, Hechtman was sneaking into clubs such as the bygone legend Rising Sun on St. Catherine St., where he saw Jamaican roots reggae icon, Burning Spear, perform. A few years later, an adolescent Hechtman was noticing that all the pretty girls in high school were joining the theatre club, and so he decided to do the same. This unexpectedly launched a decades-long career in the performing arts sector in which he notably headed the Montreal Fringe Festival and launched the MainLine Theatre.

“If the pretty girls in my high-school had joined the chess club, I would be a chess master by now,” Hechtman joked. “If they had all joined the biology club, I would have cured cancer!”

But in December 2012, Hechtman left theatre and started envisioning a new career. Unemployed and without direction during Montreal’s winter, he often went for drinks with buddy Patrick Charron to figure things out and throw around ideas. One particular establishment they frequented, a fancy cocktail bar on Parc Ave. whose plush decor contrasted with the crumbling theatre venues Hechtman was used to, inspired Hechtman to aim for something fancier. “No more warm beer and plastic cups, I want shaken cocktails,” he decided.

Thus The Wiggle Room was born with its swanky leather booths, vintage cabaret tables, rich red velvet curtains lined with gold, tastefully exposed brick walls decorated with suggestive photos of local burlesque divas and a stage for live performances.

The Wiggle Room has 12 resident burlesque performers, including saucy local talents Miss Sugarpuss and Lady Josephine. In a phone interview, Lady Josephine was excited that Montreal finally had weekly burlesque. For her, burlesque represents freedom, confidence, and helping women to assume the playfulness of their sensuality.

“It’s the ultimate freedom to find yourself naked on stage being whoever you want. Many burlesque artists undergo deep positive personal changes when they start performing,” she said.

Lady Josephine also pointed out that burlesque shows offer a great alternative to the feelings of isolation and lethargy created by television. “Live performances bring people together,” she said.

On his side, Hechtman was content with where his career has taken him. “I haven’t punched the clock or worked an office job ever,” he said. “If you find a way to make a living by doing your hobbies, you never have to work a day in your life. My job now is to sit in a booth with a martini and laugh my ass off all night while watching beautiful women strut their stuff. This is an ideal world,” Hechtman said.

On every night, except Mondays, The Wiggle Room presents a varying medley of comedy, music and burlesque. The bar will also host Sugarpuss Sunday School, where amateurs can learn to shake their moneymakers from experienced performers. Events are posted on The Wiggle Room’s Facebook page.