The board of directors of Diagramme sought to recognize Lorraine Hébert’s long-standing and unwavering commitment to the RQD as its director for 13 years, and to highlight her exceptional contribution to the development of dance.
Lorraine Hébert successfully dealt with unfavourable political circumstances to significantly increase public support for the dance sector. She was able to reconcile the community’s sometimes divergent interests by bringing its principal actors under the same tent around issues crucial to the development of the discipline, and she played a key part in drafting the Master Plan for Professional Dance in Québec 2011-2021, a colossal undertaking and the culmination of a prolonged reflection and consensus-building effort by all stakeholders in the cultural community.
BIOGRAPHY
Lorraine Hébert served as executive director of the Regroupement québécois de la danse from 2003 to 2016. She was the architect of the Grands Chantiers de la danse and the Master Plan for Professional Dance in Québec 2011-2021, which she drafted alongside consultant Pascale Daigle. While her background is in theatre, Ms. Hébert gravitated to the dance community in the 1990s. At the request of the RQD, she designed the touring model that gave rise to Danse sur les routes du Québec, and she conducted research and worked as a writer for organizations such as the Agora de la danse, Circuit-Est, and Lucie Grégoire Danse.
On the theatre scene, Lorraine Hébert co-founded the Cahiers de théâtre JEU in 1976, working on its writing team for 10 years, and she helped draft the programs for the Festival de théâtre des Amériques, in addition to hosting conferences and the famous morning event. At the same time, she taught theatre and literature, also beginning her doctoral studies in France and ultimately completing them at the Université de Montréal in 1992. Ms. Hébert served as director of dramaturgic support at the Centre des auteurs dramatiques for seven years, also representing Québec artists at the Commission des théâtres francophones. She left teaching in 1987. Ms. Hébert has worked for the CEAD and the RQD, and she held the position of French-language agent with the Canada Council for the Arts’ Theatre Section before resuming her freelance career in 2017, working for numerous cultural organizations.