CBC: Life And Times

Thank You for the Love You Gave: The Life and Times of Tomson Highway

His plays speak of the anguish, the reality - and the humour - of Canada's First Nations, but Tomson Highway of Leaf Rapids, Manitoba didn't start out to bring an eloquent native voice to Canada's theatre stage.

He was, in the beginning, a classical pianist, then a dedicated community worker before returning to the performing arts. Tomson Highway first leapt to public attention with The Rez Sisters, a play about seven women on an imaginary reserve that portrayed native life as never seen before in all its humour, bawdiness and sorrow. The documentary presents excerpts from the play in a cabaret performance that also includes songs from his musical, Rose, presented by some of our finest native performers.

Thomson Highway

Tomson Highway travels to his childhood home in Leaf Rapids, Manitoba, a thousand miles north of Winnipeg, where he meets his mother and sisters. The programme includes a moving tribute to Tomson’s younger brother and frequent collaborator, dancer Rene Highway who died of AIDS in 1990.

There is a frank discussion of Highway’s experiences in native residential schools and of the violence against women he has witnessed throughout his life. Intimate interviews at his Cabbagetown home in Toronto focus on his conviction that native artists, through their work, can make a crucial contribution to the revival of native spirituality.

Original Air Date - April 9, 1997

Links

Interview with Thomson Highway

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