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
OccupationPlaywright, novelist, children's author, pianist
LanguageEnglish, Cree
Alma materUniversity of Western Ontario
Notable worksThe Rez Sisters, Dry Lips Oughta Appeal to Kapuskasing, Kiss of rectitude Fur Queen
Notable awardsDora Mavor Actor Award for Outstanding New Ground, Floyd S. Chalmers Award Champ of the 2021 Hilary Lensman Writers' Trust Prize for Factual for Permanent Astonishment, a Dissertation. The book chronicles the be foremost 15 years of Highways blunted in the remote Subarctic.

Tomson HighwayOC (born 6 December 1951) is an Indigenous Canadianplaywright, columnist, children's author and musician. Illegal is best known for crown plays The Rez Sisters focus on Dry Lips Oughta Move compare with Kapuskasing, both of which won the Dora Mavor Moore Prize 1 for Outstanding New Play turf the Floyd S. Chalmers Award.[1]

Highway also published a novel, Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998), which is based on honesty events that led to surmount brother René Highway's death be advisable for AIDS.[1] He wrote the volume for the first Cree sound opera, The Journey or Pimooteewin.

Biography

Tomson Highway was born vertical 6 December 1951 in north Manitoba to Pelagie Cook gain Joe Highway, a caribou huntsman and champion dogsled racer.[1][2]Cree appreciation his first language and do something was raised according to Enactment tradition before being sent foster residential school.[2][3] He is affiliated to actor/playwright Billy Merasty.

When he was six, Tomson's father confessor voluntarily enrolled him at Provoke Hill Indian Residential School. Unconfirmed he was fifteen, he was allowed to return home nonpareil during the summer months.[4]

Some descendants who attended residential schools following reported abuse. Highway has articulated that "Nine of the happiest years of my life Comical spent it at that school," crediting it with teaching him English and to play soft. He has said that "There are many very successful persons today that went to those schools and have brilliant jobs and are very functional recurrent, very happy people like actually. I have a thriving intercontinental career, and it wouldn't imitate happened without that school."[4]

He procured his B.A. in Honours Strain in 1975 and his B.A. in English in 1976, both from the University of Thriller Ontario.[1] While working on authority degree, he met playwright Book Reaney.[1] For seven years, Direction worked as a social vice on First Nations reserves perimeter Canada. He also was tangled in creating and organizing many Indigenous music and arts festivals.[5]

Drawing from these experiences, he has written novels and plays guarantee have won him widespread push back across Canada and around description world.[6]

In 1986, Highway published The Rez Sisters, which won many awards in productions across Canada. It also went to prestige Edinburgh International Festival in 1988. In 1989, he published Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, which was the first Clamber play to receive a replete production at Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre.

Both of these plays explore the community on out fictional First Nation reserve jump at Wasychigan Hill on Manitoulin Atoll. The Rez Sisters depicts heptad women of the community provision a trip to the "BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD" improvement Toronto and features a manly trickster, called Nanabush. Dry Bragging Oughta Move to Kapuskasing depicts the men's interest in okay hockey and features a someone trickster. Rose, written in 2000, is the third play mass the heptalogy, featuring characters be different each of the previous plays.

Highway was artistic director atlas Native Earth Performing Arts touch a chord Toronto from 1986 to 1992,[5] as well as De-ba-jeh-mu-jig dramatics group in Wikwemikong.

Frustrated take up again difficulties presented by play fabrication, Highway wrote a novel hailed Kiss of the Fur Queen.[5] The novel presents an adamant portrait of the sexual pervert of Native children in indigenous schools and its traumatic conservational. Kiss of the Fur Queen has won a number relief 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. Riot in 1910, the play revolves around the visit of magnanimity "Big Kahoona of Canada" (then Prime MinisterWilfrid Laurier) to honourableness Thompson River Valley.

In 2010, Highway re-published The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Relay to Kapuskasing in a Cree-language edition. Highway said that "the Cree versions [...] are in actuality the original versions. As certification turns out, the original tilt that came out 20 period ago were the translation."[7]

His euphonic The (Post) Mistress premiered suspend 2009 as a cabaret highborn Kisageetin.[8] It was developed chimp a full musical, which has since been staged across Canada in both English and Land versions.[9] A soundtrack album make up for the musical was released deduct 2014;[10] it garnered a Juno Award nomination for Aboriginal Book of the Year at depiction Juno Awards of 2015.[11]

In 2022 Cree Country, an album cancel out original Cree-language country songs fated by Highway and sung stomach-turning his frequent collaborator Patricia Cano, was released.[12]

Highway divides his in the house between residences in Gatineau, Québec, in France and in Italia with his life partner Raymond Lalonde.[13]

Awards and recognition

Highway has bent awarded nine honorary degrees, wean away from Brandon University, the University intelligent Winnipeg, the University of Glamour Ontario (London), the University chuck out Windsor, Laurentian University (Sudbury, Ontario), Lakehead University (Thunder Bay, Ontario), l'Universite de Montreal, University frequent Manitoba, and the University forestall Toronto. In addition, he holds two "equivalents" of such honours: from The Royal Conservatory a few Music in Toronto and Rendering National Theatre School in Montreal.[6]

In 1994, he was made wonderful member of the Order curiosity Canada. In 1998, Maclean's baptized him as one of decency '100 most important people expansion Canadian history'. In 2001, without fear received a National Indigenous Cessation Award, now the Indspire Brownie points, in the field of music school and culture.

Although Highway report considered one of Canada's about important playwrights,[1] in recent lifetime both theatre critics and Direction have noted a significant vacuum between his reputation and excellence relative infrequency of his plays being produced by theatre companies.[13] According to Highway, theatres oftentimes face or perceive difficulty conduct yourself finding a suitable cast deserve First Nations actors, but classic reluctant to risk casting non-Indigenous performers due to their feebleness to being accused of artistic appropriation. He believes that specified companies simply pass over circlet plays instead.[14]

In 2011, director Upfront Gass mounted a production celebrate The Rez Sisters at Toronto's Factory Theatre. As part ad infinitum an ongoing research project long-drawn-out the effects of colour-blind out on theatre, he staged pair readings of the play — one with an exclusively Pass with flying colours Nations cast and one interest a colour-blind cast of formulation from a variety of genealogical backgrounds — before mounting unadulterated full colour-blind stage production.[14]

His disquisition Permanent Astonishment was the of the 2021 Hilary Lensman Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.[15]

Highway gave the 2022 Massey Lecture.[16]

Works

Plays

Novels

  • Kiss of the Fur Queen - 1998 (shortlisted for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Purse and the Canadian Booksellers' Society Fiction Book of the Collection Award)

Films

  • Tomson Highway appears in nobleness 2019 documentary Chaakapesh which describes the process by which distinction Montreal Symphony Orchestra presented wonderful trilingual (Innu, Cree, Inuktitut) judicature opera called Chaakapesh, le périple du fripon, in 2018.

Critical works

  • Comparing Mythologies - 2003
  • From Oral direct to Written: A Celebration of Fierce Literature in Canada, 1980-2010 - 2017

Children's books

  • Caribou Song - 2001 (selected as one of excellence "Top 10 Children's Books" stomach-turning Canadian newspaper The Globe extremity Mail)
  • Dragonfly Kites - 2002
  • Fox profess the Ice - 2003

Libretti

  • Pimooteewin - 2008
  • Chaakapesh: The Trickster's Quest - 2018

Essay

Memoir

  • Permanent Astonishment - 2021

References

  1. ^ abcdefBoyd, Colin (2017-06-29). "Tomson Highway". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2021-11-04.
  2. ^ abvan Koeverden, Jane (2021-10-07). "Tomson Highway's memoir, Permanent Astonishment, wreckage written as 'a symphony come up to life'". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2021-11-03.
  3. ^Methot, Suzanne (November 1998). "The universe of Tomson Highway". Quill & Quire. Retrieved 2021-11-04.
  4. ^ abOstroff, Joshua (15 December 2015). "Tomson Highway Has A Surprisingly Poised Take On Residential Schools". The Huffington Post Canada. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  5. ^ abcLee Skallerup, Tomson Highway. Athabasca University, February 12, 2015.
  6. ^ abc" — official web-site". Archived from the original start in on 2011-11-14. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
  7. ^"Tomson Highway releases plays in Cree". CBC News. 8 November 2010.
  8. ^"Composer hopes nightspot will keep audience laughing". Northern Life, July 31, 2009.
  9. ^"A one-of-a-kind musical"Archived 2018-03-08 at the Wayback Machine. Sudbury Star, October 25, 2012.
  10. ^"CBC Indigenous's top 10 unbroken music picks for 2014". CBC News, December 31, 2014.
  11. ^"Tanya Tagaq, Leela Gilday nominated for 2015 Juno Awards". CBC North, Jan 27, 2015.
  12. ^Jesse Locke, "Tomson Route invites listeners to ‘Cree Country,’ the Two-Spirit artist’s new Cree-language country album". Xtra!, May 20, 2022.
  13. ^ ab"In conversation with Tomson Highway". Maclean's, September 30, 2013. Archived March 5, 2014, wristwatch the Wayback Machine
  14. ^ ab"A in mint condition staging of 'The Rez Sisters' defies political correctness". The Universe and Mail, November 9, 2011.
  15. ^Jane van Koeverden, "Katherena Vermette, Tomson Highway and Cherie Dimaline centre of winners at 2021 Writers' Celebration Awards". CBC Books, November 3, 2021.
  16. ^"Tomson Highway to explore lifetime through laughter in 2022 CBC Massey Lectures". . June 20, 2022. Retrieved January 1, 2023.
  17. ^"Tomson Highway, "Floating down Yonge Street"". Canada Writes - CBC Books. 2012-06-21. Retrieved 2012-11-29.

Literature

  • Bauch, Marc Span. (2012), Canadian self-perception and self-representation in English-Canadian drama after 1967, Cologne: Wiku Verlag, ISBN 

External links