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Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Windspeaker.com
Sandra Laronde, a member of Temagami First Nation in northern Ontario, is the 2025 recipient of the Lifetime Artistic Achievement in Dance honour from the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards.
Laronde is a director, producer, choreographer and author, and the executive and artistic director of Red Sky Performance, a company she founded in 2000.
Laronde says she’s grateful for this latest accolade that acknowledges a lifetime of work, but there’s still quite a bit more she still wants to accomplish in her career.
“I don’t know why they give that to people so young,” Laronde jokingly said of the award. She said she has no plans to slow down.
“My energy level is good,” she said.
Laronde’s now focused on one of her most ambitious projects to date, titled She Holds Up The Stars.
This project, which is expected to have its world premiere in Toronto in April 2026, will combine dance, life-sized puppetry, theatre, storytelling, visual screen design and orchestral music.
The project was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and TO Live.
“It is the next big project,” Laronde said. “We’re just teeing that up.”
She Holds Up The Stars is actually an adaptation of the novel she released in 2022. The novel is described as a powerful story of reconciliation and the interwoven threads that tie us to family, to the land, and to our own sense of self.
“That’s pretty exciting to see my novel moved to stage,” Laronde said. “Of course, I get to adapt it so it’s not going to be exactly like the novel. I think there’s more interesting ways to adapt something for stage. That will be really fascinating to see.”
She Holds Up The Stars will be an ambitious venture, said Laronde.
“I’ve never worked with life-sized puppets before, which the horse and the puppy and a few other creatures will be,” she said. “And then we’ll have actors. It will be very multi-disciplinary in our usual trademark sense.”
Laronde will have to spearhead the puppetry, which will include having three people inside a horse to make it move around.
The project will also feature all new music.
“That’s going to be taking up a good part of my time in terms of artistic projects,” Laronde said of her 2025 and early 2026 work schedules.
Laronde will be presented with her Governor General’s award at a ceremony scheduled for June 14 at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.
“It’s a huge recognition,” Laronde said. “I mean you can’t get a higher recognition than that in Canada in terms of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award.”
Though the award was just announced Feb. 20, Laronde said she has known about it for almost a full year.
“It came as a complete surprise to me when they called and told me I was getting this award,” she said. “And then to keep it under wraps for almost pretty much a year, that was really exciting to receive that call.”
Laronde wondered how well she could keep her news a secret.
“I couldn’t tell anybody,” she said. “I only told my mother.
“And they said ‘Wow, I’m impressed. You didn’t tell people.’ It’s more exciting to do it the right way. Sometimes I was tempted (to tell others). But I didn’t.”
The Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards have been handed out annually since 1992.
There are five lifetime achievement awards presented each year. Besides the Dance category, four other recipients are also chosen. Those categories are for Stages, Classical Music, Popular Music and Screens and Voices.
Laronde will receive her award from Mary Simon, the first Indigenous person to serve as Canada’s Governor General.
“I think that just makes it extremely special,” Laronde said. She had previously received the Governor General’s Meritorious Service Cross in 2018. This award annually recognizes Canadians for exceptional deeds that bring honour to the country.
Laronde has been involved in numerous productions over the years.
“They’re all so different,” she said.
“Our very first piece that put us on the world map and is still very dear to my heart is a show called Tono. That really was a very special time that elevated us to the world stages.”
Tono was a dance and live music creation that connected the Indigenous cultures of Canada, Mongolia and China.
It had its world premiere in 2008 in Banff, Alta.
It was also performed at a premiere of the Beijing Cultural Olympiad in 2008 and at the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad.
“That project was so special because the talent and the cast and the crew, we were like a family with that work.
“When you put together awesome teams, which I love doing, when you’ve really got it right, it is so exciting when that happens because people invest their whole heart into the project. And by doing that, it has more energy. And when it has more energy there’s more people interested in it, and it goes out into the world in a very different way,” Laronde said.
Local Journalism Initiative Reporters are supported by a financial contribution made by the Government of Canada.