Last weekend, Tomson Highway received the Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award at the 2022 Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards. is deliberately very impressive to be included in this one category.
A text by Peter Knegt
He was a pianist, songwriter and creator of the librettos of two operas. The author of plays, novels, children’s books and non-fiction works, he has played a major role in establishing and expanding many Aboriginal art festivals. His life outside of the arts was both remarkable. He narrated this in detail in his memoirs, entitled Permanent Admiration, a book that won the Hilary Weston Writers ’Trust Prize 2021 in the“ Nonfiction ”category.
“Joy is at the heart of my life,” Highway said on the Governor General’s Arts Awards website. (New window) watch. He inspires me, helps me move forward and makes my spirit dance. “
In honor of this latest fun achievement from Highway, we thought we’d bring you ten things to know about his life and career.
He was born on the 6th December 1951, eleventh in a family of twelve children. The Highway website (New window) (in English) narrates his birth as follows:
“He was born in a tent erected on a snowdrift (in an incredible hurry!) on an island in a lake located in the farthest northwestern region of Manitoba, at the junction of the Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan and a territory to be called Nunavut in 1999. His family of caribou hunters crossed the tundra of dog sled, as always did then. This lake, called Mary (pronounced Ma-rai-ah), is located about 200 kilometers north of the Indian reservation (Arid lands) to which he belongs and the village is called Brochet. “
He is the son of legendary caribou hunter and world champion dog sled racer, Joe Highway, and the artist Pelagie Highway, a specialist in beadwork and quilt making. Sa Permanent AstonishmentTomson describes his parents ’marriage as a union that you can only dream of in Hollywood . “They’ve been married for sixty years, Highway said in this interview (New window) (in English) which he gave in 2021 to CBC Radio following the publication of his memoirs. It was 60 years of love. In a very good love. Their marriage was the most successful I have seen in my life. “
He worked closely with his brother René Highway, which is also openly gay. Dancer and choreographer, René died of AIDS -related complications in 1990. In Kiss the Fur Queen, a fictional account of their childhood experiences at boarding school published by Highway in 1998, Gabriel’s character inspired by Rene is gay. Margaret Atwood qualifies (New window) then it is a representation of the pioneer gesture. (This novel is published in French under the title Champion at Ooneemeetoo in 2011.) After René’s death, Highway declared (New window) sa to Maclean that his job is to be double the fun … because I promised it would be fun for both of us .
He has achieved national and international recognition 1986 with his sixth piece, The Ground Sisters (The queens of the reserve). This The piece combines a realistic perspective on daily life in a First Nations reserve with elements of indigenous spirituality. It even includes, in an outrageous way, a female character grieving the loss of her boyfriend. In 1989, he followed The Ground Sisters an additional piece, Dry Lips is set to move to Kapuskasingthat the original English version became the first Canadian play in Canadian theater history to be fully produced and presented in its entirety at the legendary Royal Alexandra Theater in Toronto.
He has written three children’s books : caribou song (2020), dragonfly kite (2020) at A fox on the ice (2020).
He has won an impressive number of awards. The Governor General’s Performing Arts Award that Highway will soon receive will be included. On its own website (New window)Highway office at one point its trophy case collapsed under its enormous weight, resulting in the deaths of three people . Not far from the realm of possibility, if we believe this very short list: Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play and Best Production (five nominations and three wins)Governor General Literary Award in the category theater (two nominations)Floyd S. Chalmers Award for Canadian Play (two wins)Toronto Arts Award (for his outstanding contributions, over the years, to various cultural industries in Toronto, as a laureate and not as a candidate), National Aboriginal Achievement Award (2001, now Indspire Awards) and appointment to the Order of Canada in 1994.
He received ten honorary doctorates. In case those awards haven’t already shown how famous Highway is, he has received numerous honorary degrees, including from Carleton University, the University of Winnipeg, the University of Toronto, and the University of Western Ontario.
For six years, he was the creative force behind Native Earth Performing Art. From 1986 to 1992, he was artistic director of Toronto’s then only professional Aboriginal theater company. He helps shape it. The company has produced works by artists such as Daniel David Moses, Drew Hayden Taylor and Margo Kane. She won nine Dora Mavor Moore Awards (fifty -four nominations for this award), two Floyd S. Chalmers Awards for Canadian Plays, and a James Buller Award for Excellence in Indigenous Theater in 1997.
This is SuperQueero . At least, that’s what the CBC Arts team believed when they ranked Highway among the most important people in LGBTQ2S+ art history and culture in Canada. (New window)
She has been with her partner for three decades. The couple splits their time between Ontario and Quebec. They live together in a cabin on a lake in central Ojibwe Ontario, just south of Sudbury (where her partner came from) and in another residence in Gatineau. They have been living like this for over a decade, surely with great joy.
Source: Radio-Canada
