Rideau Hall, Thursday, April 2, 2009
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Dear Robert Lepage,
This is not the first time that you have come to Rideau Hall, and it likely will not be the last.
The first time was 15 years go. Do you remember?
You were receiving the National Arts Centre Award, one of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards, from one of my predecessors, the Right Honourable Ramon John Hnatyshyn.
On that day, he said something that continues to hold true, even now.
He said, “There is a hurricane of imagination and artistic courage moving across the stages of North America and Europe. Its name is Robert Lepage.”
Since then, that hurricane has swept around the entire world, leaving in its wake a great stir of enthusiasm and admiration.
Robert Lepage, I am, as you know, a great admirer of yours. And both my husband Jean‑Daniel Lafond and I are absolutely delighted to be able to pay tribute to you this morning.
You walk the path of brilliance, navigating every twist and turn like no other.
That path is a lesson in freedom for each of us who has been with you since you first began this search for meaning.
But how can I describe your path, if not in terms of the unexpected and luminous possibilities that it opens in us?
You have risked the unpredictable and invite us to join you in doing so.
In a society too often obsessed with the desire for conformity and control, you tell us that life springs forth out of chaos.
That meaning can be found in that chaos, if we remain open to its signs, to the accidents and opportunities it presents.
That we must put ourselves in danger, even if it means holding ourselves up to other sensibilities and susceptibilities, for things to happen and for the adventure to unfold.
What you refer to as your “obligation of uncertainty” shatters established frameworks and makes us question what we have long held to be true.
You turn our reference points upside down and shake up our certainties, opening our minds for us to begin our own search for meaning with you.
From that way you have of approaching each project from the ground up is born a new language of the theatre. A language all your own.
A language that evokes rather than describe, that awakens in us sensations and emotions rather than name them.
A language that is as unique as it is universal.
Robert Lepage, you have always been able to manage several projects at once, whether in the City of Québec, along with your invaluable collaborators from Ex‑Machina, or with other creative minds from around the world.
These projects are rich in technical and creative challenges, drawing on a number of disciplines and influences.
You manage a colossal workload.
You imbue with your spirit plays, productions, films, operas, roles, and elaborate audio/visual creations, such as The Image Mill that marked the celebrations of the 400th anniversary of your hometown, the City of Québec.
You have created so many projects that my head is spinning just thinking about them.
One has to wonder how so many ideas can reside in one mind and one body, how one person can have such versatility and creative effervescence.
Please continue, Robert Lepage. Continue to astonish us, to move us, to shake us to the core, to reveal to us our truest selves.
Our ability to find renewal and to be filled with wonder depends on it.
