Singer Louise Forestier, singer-songwriter Michel Rivard, Innu writer and journalist Michel Jean and conductor Walter Boudreau are among the 12 personalities who will become members of the Ordre des arts et des lettres du Quebec this year.
The Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec unveiled on Wednesday the list of 12 personalities who will be honored on June 6 during an insignia ceremony at the Studio-Théâtre des Grands Ballets in Montreal.
We also find in the list of new Companions:
- Jan Rok Achard, director of the National Circus School and co-founder of the Cité des arts du cirque;
- the poet Gaston Bellemare, co-founder in 1971 of Les Écrits des Forges and founder in 1985 of the Trois-Rivières International Poetry Festival;
- the actor and director Eudore Belzile, co-founder and artistic director of the Théâtre du Bic and the Théâtre Les gens d’en bas;
- Inuit artist-engraver Tivi Etok;
- the “pioneer” of the art of puppetry in Quebec André Laliberté, artistic director for 47 years of the Théâtre de l’Œil and co-founder of the Maison Théâtre, for young audiences, in Montreal;
- the multidisciplinary artist Dulcinée Langfelder, director of the company Cercle Vertueux Danse Théâtre, now Dulcinée Langfelder Cie;
- video artist Monique Savoie, also founder of the Society for Technological Arts (SAT) in 1996;
- and Mohamed Lamine Touré, former dancer and choreographer of the National Ballet of Guinea, who later founded the Club Balattou and the Festival international Nuits d’Afrique in Montreal.
The Ordre des arts et des lettres du Québec was created in 2015 to mark the 20th anniversary of the Conseil des arts et des lettres. This distinction has been awarded so far to 125 Quebec personalities from the cultural milieu “for their remarkable contribution to the development and reputation of excellence of the arts and letters of Quebec here and abroad”.
Companions and Companions are recommended by a jury set up to determine who would be the potential new knights, following an annual call for applications. Their recommendations are endorsed by the Board. This year, the jury was made up of Myriam Achard, Claude Deschênes, Nadia Myre, Jack Robitaille and Louise Warren.
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