Un Poyo Rojo translates as “a red rooster,” but the actors in this performance dance/act more like strutting peacocks. “It” takes place in an empty locker room with only two actors and very little dialogue. The “it” is hard to pin down. Is it dance? acrobatics? a play?

The physical comedy is a “pas de deux” where the deux are two men who act out this seductive battle of the dance. The moves run the gamut from wrestling to physical comedy and play out a courtship ritual with only body noises, facial expressions and a radio for the sound effects.

Un Poyo Rojo was developed in Argentina. Luciano Rosso trained in five kinds of dance while Alfonso Baron was famous in sports.  If you want to see more of Russo, you can check out his YouTube channel. Both men are remarkable in their performances and precision timing.

There’s plenty of testosterone, sweat and two sometimes silly performers showing off in a game of seduction where communication is conducted by a highly physical acrobatic dance and athletic competition. Expect every form of movement: martial arts, acrobatics,  mime, clowning and even body percussion.

It is worth coming to the Centaur Theatre to catch the fabulous physical virtuosity of dance, sport and sexuality in Un Poyo Rojo.

Location: Centaur Theatre, 453  St. Francois Xavier
Phone: 514-288-3161 or 514-288-3161
Dates: Sept 24-29
www.centaurtheatre.com

Q1: Traditional Mother’s Day gifts might be pj’s or jewelry, could you give us some ideas of where we might go for these?

Zebra Lingerie Outlet Store is out of the way, up in a Chabanel building. You can really score well ($5 or $2 racks) in this neat liquidation store for bras, sports bras, undies (6/$10) and nighties, pj’s and bathrobes  in names you might know: Lily of France, Vassarette, Lou, Fully, Curvation Bestform, Exquisite Form and more. The Zebra staff can ensure that you are wearing the right bra specifically selected and shaped for your body. There are decent try-on rooms too.

Location: 9500 Meilleur St. (Lobby)
corner: Louvain
Phone: 514-858-9254
Hours: Tues- Wed 9:30-2, Thurs-Fri 9-6, Sat 9-2

B. Shechtman Jewellers is a third generation jewelry wholesaler can turn all your creative ideas into sparkling pieces. Come in with a concept, a piece of old jewelry, or a photo of something you like and he can make it up to your specifications creating a one-of-a-kind piece just for you. You can change a ring into a necklace or a pin into a pendant, let his imagination guide you.

Rings, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, brooches and pendants can be crafted out of gold or platinum and embellished with diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds, sapphires or other precious stones.
Of course the standard tennis bracelets, eternity bands, Tiffany bands, diamond stud earrings, wedding and engagement rings can all be purchased here – for less. They offer a full range of repair services and appraisals..

Location: 1435 St-Alexandre St., suite 1290,
corner: Mayor
Phone:514-842-0222

Q2: What about chocolates and flowers?

How about them both together? For Mother’s Day there are chocolate flower bouquets and  flower pots filled with different kinds of flowers, pretty baskets and gift packages ($6-$100) at Splendid Club Chocolate.

You can pick up yummy inexpensive chocolate gifts (or for yourself!), if you sneak over to this building’s outlet on the main floor for factory direct chocolate bargains (even Kosher) on caramels, raspberry-filled, cappuccino, almond bark, lollipops and solid or hollow novelties (Santas, bunnies, teddies) and boxed ballotins. Corporate gifts are available by appointment.

Location: 4810 Jean Talon ouest, Suite 100
corner: Victoria
Phone: 514-737-1105 x 224
Hours: Mon-Fri 10-3
www.splendidchocolates.com

Q3:  Some Moms have enough stuff, what can you suggest for them?

Buy tickets for a show: Tickets for “Lies My Father Told Me” with Broadway star Theodore Bikel and Patsy Gallant is now showing at the Segal Centre.

Location: Segal Centre, 5170 Cote Ste. Catherine Rd.
Phone: 514-739-7944
www.segalcentre.org

And the run of our own homegrown hugely popular “Schwartz’s The Musical” has been extended until this Saturday.

Location: Centaur Theatre, 453  St. Francois Xavier
Phone: 514-288-3161
www.centaurtheatrre.com

Spa 200o is offering for a Mother’s Day Special where all taxes will be included purchase of a gift card. The card can be used on any services in the spa. That’s 15% off on everything.

Location: 3563 Boul. St-Charles
Phone: 514-695-5040
www.spa2000.ca

Q4:  If you really get stuck for ideas, can you suggest some cool gift shops?

Pour Quoi Pas, located right downtown, is a colorful shop for gifts, parties, the kitchen, kids, girls and guys. For Mom’s how about some flashy colorful umbrellas, foldable collapsible water bottle or those rolling shopping carts?
Some fun things that they sell: a hook that looks like a sparrow sitting on a tree branch; bands that you slip over a beer bottle to identify whose it is; a voodoo doll toothpick holder; an alarm clock that sounds like a rooster, cat, dog, monkey or owl; a banana keeper to carry one for lunch; a purse hook to hang it on a restaurant table; or a duck shower cap.

Location: 275 Sherbrooke W
corner: du Parc
Phone: 514-524-2124

Mortimer Snodgrass, in old Montreal has good ideas for Mom:  grow kits for herbs or baby peppers or an indoor tree (by local company Seracon). Also made in Canada – pinot noir bubble bath or bath bon bons bombs that look like chocolates. An “entertaining” Mom might like the sparrow party glass markers, or the  dollhouse kitchen knick knacks. A green gift could be the pretty enviro sacs which scrunch up so small you can fit a few in your purse.

With its cutesy name, this gift shop has cutesy – and practical –  gifts. Love the salad servers that look like a growing plant and the electro man extension cord. Green toys for kids are here, like the hand-painted-in-Montreal bike bell, puppets handmade in Canada from recycled fabrics or the kiddie tea set made out of recycled milk jugs. Hugely popular are the monkeys – plastic toppers which fit on your keys so you can easily tell them apart. The neoprene lunch bag is useful, as it insulates well for cold or hot foods, and cutesy is the humungastache fetch toy, which makes your dog look like he has a mustache when he grabs the ball in his mouth.

Location: 56 Notre Dame ouest
Phone: 514-499 -2851
www.mortimersnodgrass.com

Le Panier is a huge gift store which is chock full of gourmet food items, kitchenware and gifts. You can certainly find something for Mom easily here.

There are 50 ready made baskets (baby, gourmet, birthday, sympathy), but custom-made baskets are easily assembled from the jams, hot sauces, Rogers chocolates, toys, jewelry, gadgets, and much, much more. Look for the little tasting bowls and crackers to try out new products, the candy corner or feast on their own 5-year-old cheddar, sausages made by the Mennonites, and their homemade fudge.

Location: 300 Lakeshore Road
corner: St-Joachim
www.thepanier.com

Q1:  It’s time to be a tourist in our own city, can you tell us a bit about what’s happening in Old Montreal?

When was the last time you went to Old Montreal? If you haven’t seen it in the last few years, you won’t recognize it. The software companies that marched into its western end, mostly west of McGill St., have turned this area on its nose.

Now there are people living and working down here. Fabulous new restaurants have opened up in wonderful new boutique hotels. At the eastern end, near Bonsecours St., an entire new neighborhood was created.

Q2:  That sounds like a lot of changing, is the street scene modernizing and losing its Old World charm?

Did you know that the buildings on de la Commune Street look exactly the same today as they would have been to a sailor who sailed into the port in the 19th century?  Place Jacques Cartier has been totally refreshed. For the summer, St. Paul street has been turned into a pedestrian mall.

Q3:  Let’s get back to your specialty, what about the shopping there?

For all of the new inhabitants, retail shops opened to feed and care for them  – bakeries, dry cleaners, clothing shops, furriers and depanneurs have filled up the empty storefronts.

At first glance, dear old St. Paul St. is still filled with so many souvenir shops. Having said that, a handful of them contain the works of real artisans or more upscale gifts, and those are worth stopping in to see.

Q4:  What kinds of thing would we find in those stores?

You can think of these shops as shopping green and shopping local:

L’empreinte Cooperative is a 37-year-old co-op for over 70 Quebec artists and artisans, you can expect to find variety, including ceramics, handmade albums, glass vases, bowls, sheepskin slippers, pewter lamps, handmade clothing, puppets and creative jewelry. Marianne Chevalier weaves pictures using copper thread and for souvenir hunters, Renee Bovet captures Montreal street scenes on silk.

Location:  272 St. Paul St. East
corner:  Marche Bonsecours St.
Phone: 514-861-4427.
Hours:  Sun-Wed 10-6, Thurs-Sat 10-10 (Summer daily 10-10, Jan & Feb 11-5:30 daily)
www.empreintecoop.com

Smack in the middle of old Montreal, Les artisans du meuble quebecois, is a 43-year-old artisan’s consignment shop displays some of the wares of a minimum of 450 artists. Look for: glassware, ceramics, handmade cards, duck decoys, door knockers, fish bone shadow boxes, scarves, wooden kids’ furniture, dolls, quilts, creches, jewelry (silver, beaded), wooden boxes and then some.

Location:
88 St. Paul St. East
corner: St. Gabriel St.
Phone: 514- 866-1836.
Hours: Daily 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

At Tant qu’il y aura des fleurs, the decor here feels like you’ve stepped into someone’s lovely rustic home. Objects to fill yours include artificial fruit and veggies, candlesticks, large quilts and pillows, Joanel purses, animal wallets, woven place mats, colorful tablecloths from Provence (wash ‘n use, stain repellent), dishes, wooden bowls, vases, interesting jewelry and for fun, roosters, For babies, look in the back for little terry robes and booties made in Quebec. Everything can be gift-wrapped to go.  Right now you’d be surprised but they have set up a Christmas section and does make people smile when the see it.

347 St. Paul St. East
corner: St. Claude St.
Phone: 514-395-9079
Hours: Daily 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Inside Marche Bonsecours, , emphasizes natural items. Look for framed displays of beetles or butterflies, petrified wood, some minerals and fossils. You can buy an 8′ giraffe, skin drums, stone candle holders, dream catchers, bamboo flutes, paper lanterns and some really nice handmade paper stationery.

300 St. Paul St. East
corner: Bonsecours St.,  inside Marche Bonsecours
Phone: 514- 868-9992
Hours: Monday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Pourquoi Pas is a popular gift shop right in the heart of downtown in  Place du Cathedrale. The shop is quite colorful with it’s fun ideas for parties, the kitchen, kids, girls and guys and whatever.

1– Sparrow Hook $18.95 www.dcigift.com is the cutest thing I’ve seen for hanging clothes in your hall, bathroom or bedroom. It looks like a sparrow sitting on a tree branch and you just hang your clothes on the branch end.

2 – Nature Calls Animal Sound Clock $25   It’s way calmer to transition from sleep to the day when hearing the sound of a rooster, cat, dog, monkey, owl, etc.

3 – Beer Bands $9.50 www.silocollection.com Just in time for the H1N1 scare. You can slip these over your beer bottle and it identifies whose is whose so no one drinks out of the wrong bottle.

4 – USB Hubman $25 www.kikkerland.com Use this human-like hub for speakers, cameras, mice, keyboards, drives.

5 – Ouch $12.95 www.worldwidefred.com is a voodoo doll toothpick holder. It sure is weird to pull toothpicks out of him for your hors d’ouevres but even weirder putting them in.

6 – Sniff $2 www.sniff.tv are multi colored tissues packs with designs of  hula girls, animals, wild patterns designs. Sure makes you smile a bit if you have the sniffles

7 – Steady Eddie Person Pizza Cutter $9.95 www.antevanilla.com Koziol started the  craze of turning kitchen gadgets into cute colorful designs. This company does it too.

8 – Banana Guard $6.95 www. bananaguard.com No more mushy bananas or ones with with black spots from bumping on the way to work. This is made in Canada

9 – Cheeky Children’s Cutlery $19.95 www.maxwellandwilliams.com For little hands, and fun meals, there is a person sitting on each piece of cutlery and these same people can  stand on the table for entertainment,  or removed and played with while you eat. Cutlery can be used without them as the kids get older.

10 – Magic top ‘n shorts $24.95 www.magictopnshorts.com Perfect for a traveling gift or stocking stuffer. Just drop in water and the outfit grows to your size

11 – Purse Caddy $9.95 Don’t lose your holiday money with your purse over the back of your chair or on the foor. Hang your purse on restaurant table in front of you. This one folds up to the size of a toony.

12 – Reindeer Shower Cap $$9.95 www.npw.co.uk You always need one ridiculous item that says Christmas and this is it.

13 – Shopper Stopper pills $4.50 www.crazycures.com These colorful bottles are made to cure all sorts of imagined illnesses. This one is perfect for the holidays as it cures shopaholism It’s made in Canada.

Pourquoi Pas
Location: Place du Cathedrale
625 Ste-Catherine St ouest
Tel: 514-524-2124