Tanya Tagaq Wins Polaris Prize 2014, Watch Her Live Performance Dedicated to MMIW
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Groundbreaking, devastatingly incredible Inuk artist, Tanya Tagaq, beat out high profile artists like the Arcade Fire, Drake, Chromeo and a long list of others, to win the 2014 Polaris Music Prize for her album, Animism.
She will receive the $30,000 prize and, in her acceptance speech, Tagaq encouraged everyone "to wear and eat seal as much as possible" adding "fuck PETA":
"People should wear and eat seal as much as possible because if you can imagine an indigenous culture thriving and surviving on sustainable resource, wearing seal and eating it, it’s delicious and there’s lots of them.
Her performance included a dedication to missing and murdered Indigenous women, with scrolling projections of the names of #MMIW displayed behind her as she sang, accompanied by an intricate polyvocal choral arrangement.
Hailed for her "jaw-droppingly powerful and astoundingly strange" performance, Tagaq brought the crowd to its feet and proved, definitively, that the Indigenous music renaissance is just getting started.
Janine Wesaquate. Jarita Naistus. Jaylene Crane. Jaylene Redhead. Jean Ballantyne. #MMIW #Polaris2014 @tagaq pic.twitter.com/utAuntMrwc
— Melody McKiver (@m_melody) September 23, 2014
Haunting, mesmerizing, riveting performance by @tagaq dedicated to the long list of missing & murdered aboriginal women. #Polaris2014 #MMIW
— Zaib Shaikh (@Zaib_Shaikh) September 23, 2014
Tanya Tagaq dedicates her @PolarisPrize set to #MMIW - and wow, performance of the night. #Polaris2014 pic.twitter.com/z48oQYbMYo
— Quentin Burgess (@teamquentin) September 23, 2014
Watch Tagaq's astonishing live performance of "Uja" and "Umingmak", starting at 3:22:09 below:
