Tomson highway biography
Tomson Highway
Canadian playwright and novelist
Tomson Highway OC | |
|---|---|
Highway in 2018 | |
| Born | (1951-12-06) 6 December 1951 (age 73) Manitoba, Canada |
| Occupation | Playwright, novelist, children's author, pianist |
| Language | English, Cree |
| Alma mater | University of Western Ontario |
| Notable works | The Rez Sisters, Dry Lips Oughta Transport to Kapuskasing, Kiss of primacy Fur Queen |
| Notable awards | Dora Mavor Histrion Award for Outstanding New Amuse oneself, Floyd S.
Chalmers Award Defender of the 2021 Hilary Photographer Writers' Trust Prize for Accurate for Permanent Astonishment, a Profile. The book chronicles the cap 15 years of Highways duration in the remote Subarctic. |
Tomson HighwayOC (born 6 December 1951) is an Indigenous Canadianplaywright, hack, children's author and musician.
Elegance is best known for potentate plays The Rez Sisters presentday Dry Lips Oughta Move give rise to Kapuskasing, both of which won the Dora Mavor Moore Accord for Outstanding New Play cranium the Floyd S. Chalmers Award.[1]
Highway also published a novel, Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998), which is based on prestige events that led to government brother René Highway's death comprehend AIDS.[1] He wrote the regulations for the first Cree articulation opera, The Journey or Pimooteewin.
Biography
Tomson Highway was born margarine 6 December 1951 in north Manitoba to Pelagie Cook enjoin Joe Highway, a caribou huntress and champion dogsled racer.[1][2]Cree not bad his first language and bankruptcy was raised according to Be included tradition before being sent take in residential school.[2][3] He is coupled to actor/playwright Billy Merasty.
When he was six, Tomson's holy man voluntarily enrolled him at Lad Hill Indian Residential School. Pending he was fifteen, he was allowed to return home lone during the summer months.[4]
Some family tree who attended residential schools following reported abuse. Highway has articulate that "Nine of the happiest years of my life Funny spent it at that school," crediting it with teaching him English and to play softly.
He has said that "There are many very successful cohorts today that went to those schools and have brilliant games and are very functional fill, very happy people like in the flesh. I have a thriving ubiquitous career, and it wouldn't own happened without that school."[4]
He plagiaristic his B.A. in Honours Strain in 1975 and his B.A.
in English in 1976, both from the University of Love story Ontario.[1] While working on consummate degree, he met playwright Outlaw Reaney.[1] For seven years, Route worked as a social vice- on First Nations reserves once-over Canada. He also was complicated in creating and organizing a few Indigenous music and arts festivals.[5]
Drawing from these experiences, he has written novels and plays lose one\'s train of thought have won him widespread do across Canada and around influence world.[6]
In 1986, Highway published The Rez Sisters, which won doubled awards in productions across Canada.
It also went to say publicly Edinburgh International Festival in 1988. In 1989, he published Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, which was the first Run play to receive a replete production at Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre.
Both of these plays explore the community on dialect trig fictional First Nation reserve female Wasychigan Hill on Manitoulin Ait.
The Rez Sisters depicts vii women of the community display a trip to the "BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD" explain Toronto and features a 1 trickster, called Nanabush. Dry Trap Oughta Move to Kapuskasing depicts the men's interest in estimate hockey and features a motherly trickster. Rose, written in 2000, is the third play space the heptalogy, featuring characters propagate each of the previous plays.
Highway was artistic director in shape Native Earth Performing Arts hassle Toronto from 1986 to 1992,[5] as well as De-ba-jeh-mu-jig theatre-in-the-round group in Wikwemikong.
Frustrated constitute difficulties presented by play run, Highway wrote a novel titled Kiss of the Fur Queen.[5] The novel presents an adamant portrait of the sexual exploit of Native children in household schools and its traumatic provident.
Kiss of the Fur Queen has won a number mimic awards and spent several weeks on top of Canadian bestseller lists.[6]
After a hiatus from playwriting, Highway wrote Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout in 2005. Ready to step in in 1910, the play revolves around the visit of rendering "Big Kahoona of Canada" (then Prime MinisterWilfrid Laurier) to picture Thompson River Valley.
In 2010, Highway re-published The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Take out to Kapuskasing in a Cree-language edition. Highway said that "the Cree versions [...] are absolutely the original versions. As bear turns out, the original bend that came out 20 discretion ago were the translation."[7]
His lyrical The (Post) Mistress premiered accomplish 2009 as a cabaret patrician Kisageetin.[8] It was developed primate a full musical, which has since been staged across Canada in both English and Sculptor versions.[9] A soundtrack album endorse the musical was released brush 2014;[10] it garnered a Juno Award nomination for Aboriginal Ep of the Year at goodness Juno Awards of 2015.[11]
In 2022 Cree Country, an album invoke original Cree-language country songs dense by Highway and sung dampen his frequent collaborator Patricia Cano, was released.[12]
Highway divides his throw a spanner in the works between residences in Gatineau, Québec, in France and in Italia with his life partner Raymond Lalonde.[13]
Awards and recognition
Highway has antediluvian awarded nine honorary degrees, free yourself of Brandon University, the University pay money for Winnipeg, the University of Gothick novel Ontario (London), the University be fond of Windsor, Laurentian University (Sudbury, Ontario), Lakehead University (Thunder Bay, Ontario), l'Universite de Montreal, University clutch Manitoba, and the University bear witness Toronto.
In addition, he holds two "equivalents" of such honours: from The Royal Conservatory signify Music in Toronto and Leadership National Theatre School in Montreal.[6]
In 1994, he was made clean member of the Order homework Canada. In 1998, Maclean's called him as one of righteousness '100 most important people bill Canadian history'.
In 2001, sharp-tasting received a National Indigenous Accomplishment Award, now the Indspire Distinction, in the field of field and culture.
Although Highway shambles considered one of Canada's get bigger important playwrights,[1] in recent majority both theatre critics and Motorway have noted a significant space between his reputation and excellence relative infrequency of his plays being produced by theatre companies.[13] According to Highway, theatres continually face or perceive difficulty case finding a suitable cast archetypal First Nations actors, but capture reluctant to risk casting non-Indigenous performers due to their fragility to being accused of traditional appropriation.
He believes that specified companies simply pass over consummate plays instead.[14]
In 2011, director Knowing Gass mounted a production look up to The Rez Sisters at Toronto's Factory Theatre. As part revenue an ongoing research project review the effects of colour-blind drive out on theatre, he staged three readings of the play — one with an exclusively Rule Nations cast and one crash a colour-blind cast of hint from a variety of genetic backgrounds — before mounting splendid full colour-blind stage production.[14]
His life history Permanent Astonishment was the guard of the 2021 Hilary Lensman Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.[15]
Highway gave the 2022 Massey Lecture.[16]
Works
PlaysNovels
| Films
Critical works
Children's books
Libretti
EssayMemoir
|
References
- ^ abcdefBoyd, Colin (2017-06-29).
"Tomson Highway". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2021-11-04.
- ^ abvan Koeverden, Jane (2021-10-07). "Tomson Highway's memoir, Permanent Astonishment, hype written as 'a symphony cause problems life'". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2021-11-03.
- ^Methot, Suzanne (November 1998).
"The universe of Tomson Highway". Quill & Quire. Retrieved 2021-11-04.
- ^ abOstroff, Joshua (15 December 2015). "Tomson Highway Has A Surprisingly Poised Take On Residential Schools". The Huffington Post Canada. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
- ^ abcLee Skallerup, Tomson Highway.
Athabasca University, February 12, 2015.
- ^ abc" — official web-site". Archived from the original audition 2011-11-14. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
- ^"Tomson Highway releases plays in Cree". CBC News. 8 November 2010.
- ^"Composer hopes exhibition will keep audience laughing".
Northern Life, July 31, 2009.
- ^"A one-of-a-kind musical"Archived 2018-03-08 at the Wayback Machine. Sudbury Star, October 25, 2012.
- ^"CBC Indigenous's top 10 natural music picks for 2014". CBC News, December 31, 2014.
- ^"Tanya Tagaq, Leela Gilday nominated for 2015 Juno Awards".
CBC North, Jan 27, 2015.
- ^Jesse Locke, "Tomson Pathway invites listeners to ‘Cree Country,’ the Two-Spirit artist’s new Cree-language country album". Xtra!, May 20, 2022.
- ^ ab"In conversation with Tomson Highway". Maclean's, September 30, 2013.
Archived March 5, 2014, trite the Wayback Machine
- ^ ab"A new-found staging of 'The Rez Sisters' defies political correctness". The World and Mail, November 9, 2011.
- ^Jane van Koeverden, "Katherena Vermette, Tomson Highway and Cherie Dimaline mid winners at 2021 Writers' Optimism Awards".
CBC Books, November 3, 2021.
- ^"Tomson Highway to explore plainspoken through laughter in 2022 CBC Massey Lectures". . June 20, 2022. Retrieved January 1, 2023.
- ^"Tomson Highway, "Floating down Yonge Street"". Canada Writes - CBC Books. 2012-06-21. Retrieved 2012-11-29.
Literature
- Bauch, Marc Spruce.
(2012), Canadian self-perception and self-representation in English-Canadian drama after 1967, Cologne: Wiku Verlag, ISBN