1. Tanya Tagaq, credited as Tagaq, is a Canadian Inuk throat singer, songwriter, novelist, actor, and visual artist from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada, on the south coast of Victoria Island.
15 Facts About Tanya Tagaq
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At the age of 15, after attending school in Cambridge Bay, Tagaq went to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, to attend Sir John Franklin High School where she first began to practice throat singing.
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Tanya Tagaq later studied visual arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and while there developed her own solo form of Inuit throat singing, which is normally done by two women.
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Tanya Tagaq's decision to go solo was a pragmatic one: she did not have a singing partner.
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Tanya Tagaq was a popular performer at Canadian folk festivals, such as Folk on the Rocks in 2005, and first became widely known both in Canada and internationally for her collaborations with Bjork, including concert tours and the 2004 album Medulla.
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Tanya Tagaq has performed with the Kronos Quartet and Shooglenifty and has been featured on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.
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In 2012 Tanya Tagaq performed the theme music for the CBC television show Arctic Air.
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Tanya Tagaq released her third album, Animism, on May 27,2014, on Six Shooter Records.
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In May 2018, Tanya Tagaq announced her first book, a blend of fiction and memoir titled Split Tooth, which was published in September 2018 by Penguin Random House.
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In 2005, Tanya Tagaq collaborated with Okna Tsahan Zam, a Kalmyk Khoomei throat singer, and Wimme, a Sami yoiker from Finland, to release the recording Shaman Voices.
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Tanya Tagaq began collaborating with the Kronos Quartet in 2005.
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In 2015, Tanya Tagaq was commissioned to write a piece for the Kronos Quartet's Fifty for the Future project.
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In 2012, Toronto International Film Festival commissioned Tanya Tagaq to create a live soundscape for Nanook of the North, as part of the festival's film retrospective First Peoples Cinema: 1500 Nations, One Tradition.
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Tanya Tagaq collaborated with composer Derek Charke, percussionist Jean Martin and violinist Jesse Zubot, and the work was performed at the 2012 TIFF and Under the Radar Festival at New York's Public Theater, 2016, amongst other places.
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Tanya Tagaq is a vocal supporter of traditional Inuit sealing and Indigenous land rights.