Quanz Awarded State Medal in Literature and the Arts

On February 11th, Canadian choreographer Peter Quanz will receive the State Medal in Literature and the Arts from President Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn of the Republic of Buryatia, Russia. The award, which lauds significant creations of artistic and literary work for the Republic, recognizes Quanz’s collaboration with the Buryatia National Ballet for the Republic’s 350-year membership in the Russian Federation. In addition to the creation of a new work, titled Dzambuling, Quanz also remounted his In Tandem, while he was in residence in Ulan-Ude, the Buryatian capital, in 2011. Anton Lubchenko, a composer who created the score to Quanz’s In Colour (a 2009 work for The National Ballet of Canada), commissioned Quanz to create the award-winning work for the forty-five members of the Republic’s National Ballet. The choreographer, who hails from Baden, Ontario, and is now based in Winnipeg, has international prominence as a choreographer, and is the first North American to be awarded the medal.