The jury chose to award the Prix Envol to Claudia Chan Tak in recognition of the quality of her achievements and her exceptional dedication to artists from diverse cultural backgrounds. The committee thus singled out her great generosity and the ease with which she helped the community discover their rich contribution. By turns a choreographer, movement consultant, performer, producer or videographer for her own works, Claudia Chan Tak is involved in multiple artistic collaborations, and she is also the instigator of the indispensable Bottin artistique et asiatique au Québec, created in response to the racism experienced by members of her community in recent years. The jury also drew attention to the bold initiatives that Ms. Chan Tak put forward as commissioner for diversity with the Phenomena Festival, making her a unique multidisciplinary artist who brillant par sa finesse et son dynamisme dans le paysage montréalais.
Multidisciplinary artist
Multidisciplinary artist Claudia Chan Tak was trained in the visual arts. She holds a bachelor’s degree with distinction from Concordia University (2009) as well as a bachelor’s degree (2012) and a master’s degree (2017) in contemporary dance from UQAM. Her choreographic projects have been presented on stages at Tangente, OFFTA, ZH Festival, Phenomena, Accès Asie, Festival Fleur de lys et fleur de thé, Short&Sweet, La Petite scène, Edgy Women, and at the Festival À Corps in France and the Théâtre de Liège in Belgium. She also works in theatre, film, music and the circus. In theatre, she has played leading roles in plays by Solène Paré, Jean-François Guibault, Frédéric Jeanrie and Anne-Sophie Rouleau. As a choreographer, she collaborates with Théâtre de la Sentinelle, Théâtre I.N.K., Théâtre de l’Opsis and Talisman Theater, while teaching movement at the National Theatre School. She won the 2015 Prix William Douglas and the 2018 Prix Mécènes investis pour les arts in recognition of the quality of her work. In the past two years, she has served as diversity commissioner for the Phenomena Festival. In addition to sitting on artistic juries and organizing a number of events, she collaborates with the Coalition asiatique pour une relève émancipatrice (La CARÉ), a group that won the prestigious 2020-2021 Prix coup de cœur de la diversité Paul-Gérin Lajoie.