Winners of the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton awards announced
The annual awards, worth $15,000 each, recognize outstanding mid-career artists in the seven disciplines funded by the Canada Council: dance, integrated arts, media arts, music, theatre, visual arts and writing and publishing. The prizes were created using funds from a generous bequest made by the late Victor Martyn LynchStaunton to the Canada Council. Through a nomination process, the peer assessment committees of the Grants to Professional Artists programs during the 20082009 fiscal year selected the most outstanding professional mid-career artists among the successful applicants.
Ms. Forsythe's multidisciplinary practice culminated with the 2006 installation work The Deergirl Diaries: gestures of combat and passion, a ten-day movement installation at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto. Her complex lexicon mines her interests in pop and folk cultures, music and politics. She is currently working on a new group work, Golpe, a coproduction with Festival TransAmriques and L'Agora de la danse, which will be premiered in Montreal in May 2010. Visit www.tusketdance.com for more information.
Stephen Lawson has been considered an artistic chameleon, repeatedly traversing the discipline defined boundaries of theatre, music, television/radio, print and video. Upon graduating from the acting program of the National Theatre School of Canada (1988) he became a cofounder of the Winnipeg-based performance troupe PRIMUS (1989-1998) which created/toured numerous original productions. Mr. Lawson moved to Montreal in 2001.
A Montreal-based performance and video artist, Aaron Pollard has created and presented video and multimedia performance works to Canadian and international audiences since the early 1990s. He is a graduate of the Emily Carr University of Art + Design (Media Division) and he obtained an MFA in Studio Arts (Open Media) from Concordia University. He currently works as the Technical Director for OBORO New Media Lab and Exhibition Centre in Montreal.
Mr. 2bears has performed his multimedia works extensively and has released several recordings on CD and DVD in both solo and collaborative contexts. He scored several independent films, including the award winning short-feature Bloodriver by Kent Monkman and Urbannation. Jackson 2bears is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Victoria.
Over 65 performances of Mr. McDonald's compositions appear on CDs, both on his own recordings as well as on recordings by other artists. He recently released Family Suite (2008), an 11 part suite for jazz quartet on Romhog Records, and Songbook Vol. I (2009) a collection of his compositions for jazz quartet, on ADDO Jazz Records, with Songbook Vol. II scheduled for release in 2010. He also leads the Kirk MacDonald Jazz Orchestra, a 19-piece all-star ensemble dedicated to performing his original compositions. He is a full-time faculty member at Humber College in Toronto where he teaches in both the Music Degree Program and at the Community Music School.
Over the last 25 years, Mr. Hayden Taylor has traveled to sixteen countries around the world, promoting Native literature which addresses topics that reflect, celebrate, and interfere in the lives of Canada's First Nations. His new play, Dead White Director on the Floor, will open in January at Magnus Theatre in Thunder Bay. Currently, he is working on a new play titled Crees in the Carribean, and a collection of essays called Postcards from the Four Directions. Author of 20 books, his novel Motorcylces and Sweetgrass will be published in early 2010.
Mr. Hannah has exhibited at the Muse national des beaux-arts du Qubec (currently on view), the Muse d'art contemporain de Montral, Zendai MoMA, Shanghai, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada, Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, the 4th Seoul International Media Art Biennale, and at the Casa Encendida in Madrid. His works are in private, corporate, and institutional collections around the world. Born in New York in 1971, Mr. Adad lives and works in Montreal. He is represented by Pierre-Franois Ouellette art contemporain of Montreal. For more information, visit www.adadhannah.com.
In 2008, Mr. Girard received the CanadaJapan Literary Award for Marcher le silence carnets du Japon. A Japanese-style travel diary, this haibun, co-authored with Andr Duhaime, was written following an initial trip to Japan and published by Lmac. While staying in Tokyo for two months, Mr. Girard started writing the third book in his hotel series, Tokyo Imperial. After obtaining a master's degree in literary studies (UQAM, 1994), he went on to earn a PhD in the same subject under the direction of Neil Bissoondath (Universit Laval, 2008). Winner of several literary awards, including the 1991 Prix RobertCliche, he currently teaches French and Literature at the Cgep de Chicoutimi.
Please visit our website (www.canadacouncil.ca) for a complete listing of these awards.
Labels: canada council for the arts, Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton awards