Recent Awards in Dance: Édouard Lock and Helen Husak

Édouard Lock, founder of Montréal’s La La La Human Steps, and Calgary-based dancer Helen Husak are recent recipients of Canadian awards in the arts. Lock was awarded one of two Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prizes, which recognize outstanding lifetime achievement and contribution to Canadian culture. The Molson prize, worth $50,000, becomes the most recent in a long list of awards for Lock who has been named an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Québec. In Alberta, Helen Husak received one of seven 2010 biennial emerging artist awards from the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Foundation. The recipients of this year’s awards represented a broad range of arts disciplines, including film, music, dance, theatre, visual arts, production and writing, and glass artists. The award acknowledged Husak as being one of Canada’s leading contemporary dancers, and being instrumental in developing training programs for professional dancers in Calgary. In 2008, Husak was the recipient of the Enbridge Artist Award at the Mayor’s Evening for Business and the Arts in Calgary.