Deeply saddened about the passing of Michael Green

Mayor Naheed Nenshi, Michael Green, Karen Ball and Jason Kenney
at the Calgary 2012 launch party. Photo from Calgary 2012.

I am terribly saddened to learn about the passing of five people in a car accident yesterday, including four members of the arts and cultural community in Canada. Michele Sereda was well-known as an artist and mentor in Saskatchewan, and Lacy Morin-Desjarlais was a young artist and teacher of great talent and promise.

Elder Narcisse Blood was a pillar of the Kainai nation, as an academic and as an artist. Although I didn't know him well, his reputation as a filmmaker preceded him, and he was an integral part of the extraordinary Making Treaty 7.

We also lost Michael Green yesterday. I've watched Michael on stages since I was a teenager, and in recent years came to know him as a friend. It’s impossible to overstate his importance to the arts community and to the development of our city.

A fearless performer, an infuriating collaborator, a deft curator, a skilled administrator, and an unforgettable teacher, Michael has put us on the map. His work with One Yellow Rabbit has been extraordinary, and his curating of the High Performance Rodeo has raised the bar for the quality of art we expect on our stages. In recent years, he was the heart and soul of Calgary 2012 – the year we were Canada’s Cultural Capital. And his real passion – outside of his family – has been his work with Making Treaty 7, a powerful project that helps us all understand the land we live on and where we all come from.

So, through our tears, how do we honour these extraordinary people?

We live, we love, and we create. One Yellow Rabbit will still do stuff that hits you hard in the chest and the brain (like Michael did with his colleagues just last month in What the Thunder Said), the High Performance Rodeo will continue to attract the best talent to Calgary every winter, and Making Treaty 7 will continue to challenge us to rethink our past and our future. And in all of that, we will see and hear Michael.

- Mayor Naheed Nenshi