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We are very happy to welcome back Buffy Sainte-Marie to our "7th Annual National Aboriginal Women In Leadership Training Conference" as she attended the "1st Annual National Aboriginal Women In Leadership Training Conference in October 2000!"
About
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Born on a Cree
reservation in Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, Buffy Sainte-Marie was adopted
and raised in Maine and Massachusetts. Buffy Sainte-Marie virtually invented
the role of Native American international activist pop star. Her concern for
protecting indigenous intellectual property, and her distaste for the exploitation
of Native American artists and performers has kept her in the forefront of activism
in the arts for forty years.
As a college student in the early 1960s, Buffy Sainte-Marie became known as
a writer of protest songs and love songs. Many of these became huge hits and
classics of the era, performed by hundreds of other artists including Barbra
Streisand, Elvis Presley, Chet Atkins, Janis Joplin, Roberta Flack, Neil Diamond,
Tracy Chapman and The Boston Pops Orchestra. Musically she has many achievements
and accomplishments, some include winning an Academy Award for the song "Up
Where We Belong" from the film "An Officer and a Gentleman".
Others awards and achievements include in March of 1992 in Canada at the JUNO
Awards, Buffy helped to establish the new category "Music of Aboriginal
Canada". While Internationally, in France she was presented with the Charles
de Gaulle award for "Best International Artist " for her 1993 CD,
"Coincidence and Likely Stories".
In Canada her achievements
include 1994, Buffy receiving The Lifetime Achievement Award in her home province
of Saskatchewan, by the Saskatchewan Recording Industry Association. Then, in
1995, the Canadian music industry inducted Buffy into the JUNO Hall of Fame.
By 1996, Buffy's newest album “Up Where We Belong” was released
in Canada on EMI Records, and won the 1997 JUNO Award (Canada’s version
of a Grammy) for Best Music of Aboriginal Canada. In the spring of 1997, Buffy
received a Gemini Award (Canada’s version of an Emmy) for Best Performance
in a Variety Special called “Up Where We Belong”, now available
on Videocassette.
In May of 1998, Buffy Sainte-Marie was invested as an Officer in the Order of
Canada, which is the highest offer that country can bestow.
She received the American Indian College Fund's Lifetime Achievement Award in November of 1998, and she serves on the First Lady's committee to "Save America's Treasures".
Some of her performances
include appearing in a major role in Turner Network's movie "The Broken
Chain" in the fall of 1993, pushing for accuracy and the involvement of
grassroots cultural experts. And she spent five years on Sesame Street!
Educationally Buffy is well accomplished, her many educational achievements
include receiving a Ph.D. in Fine Art from the University of Massachusetts and
she also holds degrees in both Oriental Philosophy and Teaching; influences
which form the backbone of her music, visual art and social activism.
Presently she operates the Nihewan Foundation for Native American Education
whose Cradleboard Teaching Project serves children and teachers in eighteen
states. Buffy continues to draw huge crowds on the concert circuit - she played
to 210,000 people in Denmark and a million people in Washington DC for the Smithsonian's
150th birthday- but she never forgets her own people and performs regularly
on the smallest of reservations across North America. Buffy Sainte-Marie's work
is a reflection of her own life - extremely varied and unique.
For More Information about Buffy Sainte Marie: http://www.creative-native.com/index.htm