Director Alexia Bürger won the Jovette-Marchessault prize on Monday, which aims to recognize the contribution of women artists in the Montreal theater community.
This award, which has been awarded since 2019, comes with a $20,000 scholarship. The other two finalists, Mélanie Demers and Marie-Ève Huot, receive tickets for a round trip to France on an Air Transat flight.
The prize, which bears the name of a self-taught writer, sculptor and painter from Quebec who died ten years ago, is given each year to an artist who has distinguished herself in a field distinct from the theater world. Last year, the award, then won by playwright Marie Leofeli Romero Barlizo, highlighted women authors; this year, it is the directors that the Conseil des arts de Montréal and the Théâtre Espace Go wanted to thank.
“I receive this prize as an encouragement to continue the work with as much frankness, freedom and perseverance as I will be able to do”, reacted by way of press release the big winner, Alexia Bürger.
The artist has not lacked perseverance in recent years, during which she has contributed to numerous plays, sometimes as an author, sometimes as a playwright and director.
Varied and striking works
In particular, in 2018 she signed the piece The Hardings, a landmark work that addresses the train derailment that occurred in Lac-Mégantic five years earlier, for which the artist won two awards. The play, which was performed last year at the scene of the tragedy and across the province, has been translated into English, German and Spanish.
Versatile, the director and playwright has contributed in recent years to various shows ranging from dance (Porcelainby Wynn Holmes), to circus art (amoraCirque du Soleil), through the ideation of the walking tour I no longer belong to myselfpresented at the Espace Go theater in 2012. She also collaborated in the theatrical and musical creation of Michel Rivard The origin of my specieswhich won two awards at the ADISQ gala in 2019.
More recently, Alexia Bürger directed the play The girls of the Saint-Lawrence, which made its debut last month at the Center du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui in Montreal. The work is a tribute to the resilience of women and to the splendor of the St. Lawrence River, which has inspired so many Quebec artists.
The artist, who was assistant artistic director at the Center du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui from 2006 to 2014, has also taught directing at the National Theater School of Canada since 2018.