Buffy Sainte-Marie Speaks
Tuesday November 7, 2017  7:30pm
Lecture / Seminar

 pas@acadiau.ca
 902-542-5500 or 1-800-542-TICK

The Acadia Performing Arts Series is pleased to present a lecture by Buffy Sainte-Marie. The talk by the Cree singer-songwriter, activist, educator, visual artist, and winner of countless awards (Oscar, Juno, and Golden Globe, among them) is part of the Canada150 Performance Series supported by Canadian Heritage, RADARTS and the Atlantic Presenters Association.
“Detoxifying Aboriginal Self-perception and Outward Identity” looks at the pressing issues affecting First Nations/Native American and World Indigenous Communities. In this presentation, Buffy Sainte-Marie stresses the importance of local activism in creating positive changes through education, health and personal development.
Perhaps you know Sainte-Marie from her 1960s protest anthems (“Universal Soldier”), open-hearted love songs (“Until It’s Time for You to Go”), incendiary powwow rock (“Starwalker”), or the juggernaut pop hit “Up Where We Belong”, which Sainte-Marie co-wrote and Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes sang for the soundtrack to An Officer and a Gentleman.
One of her earliest classics, “Cod’ine,” a harrowing account of addiction well ahead of its time, was covered by everyone from Janis Joplin to Donovan to Courtney Love. Or maybe you remember Sainte-Marie from her five years on the television show “Sesame Street” beginning in the mid-’70s.
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s bold 2015 album, Power in the Blood, begins where it all started more than 50 years ago, with a contemporary version of “It’s My Way,” the title track of her 1964 debut. Its message, about the road to self-identity and the conviction to be oneself, still resonates with the Cree singer-songwriter, activist, educator, visual artist, and winner of countless awards (Oscar, Juno, and Golden Globe, among them).
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s highly anticipated new album Medicine Songs will be released worldwide on November 10, 2017, via True North Records.
Her unwavering resilience has rippled across genres and generations, even as Sainte-Marie’s profile in the United States diminished significantly when she was blacklisted in the ’70s. Recognizing the power of her songwriting and activism, the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon administrations considered her an “artist to be suppressed,” and Sainte-Marie all but disappeared from the US music industry.
Every song and every era have revealed new and distinctive shades of an artist revered for her pioneering and chameleon ways. There was no mold from which Buffy Sainte-Marie emerged; she created her own, ripened from experiences in both her head and her heart.
Admission for this talk is free of charge. Besides the Performing Arts Series, it is sponsored at Acadia by the offices of the President and Vice-President Academic, the Dean of Arts and the Acadia School of Music.
Pricing & Tickets
Pricing: Free
Convocation Hall
Acadia University
15 University Avenue
Wolfville, Nova Scotia

 nicholas.sharpe@acadiau.ca

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