By CJME staff

Regina artists victims of fatal car accident

Feb 11, 2015 | 6:35 AM

People have taken to social media to mourn the victims of a deadly crash north of Regina Tuesday.

Michele Sereda and Lacy Morin-Desjarlais were the two women killed in a three-vehicle crash Tuesday morning. Both women were celebrated artists based out of Regina.

Sereda, 49, had been a major figure in Regina’s arts’ community for a number of decades, but also had a wealth of experience on international stages. She had shared her passion for the arts through teaching, both as a faculty member for the University of Regina’s theatre department as well as an instructor in workshops around the province. Sereda had received the Mayor Arts and Business Award for Living the Arts in 2013. She was also the artistic director of the experimental theatre company Curtain Razors.

Morin-Desjarlais, 29, was a Saulteux artists who was born in Saskatchewan and grew up in B.C. She moved back to Regina two years ago and recently began teaching a beginners powwow class at the University of Regina Conservatory.

The two men traveling in the same vehicle as Sereda and Morin-Desjarlais have been identified as two artists from southern Alberta: Michael Green and Narcisse Blood.

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Green, 58, was the founder of Calgary’s One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre. He had just been part of a One Yellow Rabbit production of What the Thunder Said late last month.

Blood, 60, was a First Nations teacher and filmmaker in southern Alberta. He taught at the Red Crow Community College, Lethbridge University and in the International Indigenous Studies Department at the University of Calgary. He had previously spoken at the University of Regina on the topic of Indigenous education.

The fifth victim of the crash was driving one of the other vehicles involved. RCMP say 59-year-old Morley Hartenberger from Cupar was driving the Chevrolet Avalance.

Two people were in the third vehicle involved in the crash. They were taken to hospital. RCMP the woman is still in hospital but the man has been released.

A time of loss

Those who worked with the Saskatchewan women are remembering the legacy they left behind.
 
Alan Long is the general manager at the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company (SNTC) in Sakatoon and was mentored by Sereda while he was a student at the University of Saskatchewan.
 
“She is a wonderful communicator, a great teacher, I know many in the acting community would attest to that,” he said.
 
She also gave him his first professional acting job outside of Saskatoon in a play in Regina calledThe Room With Five Walls.

“It was a great experience and I learned so much from her.”
 
Long explained that SNTC’s artistic director Curtis Peeteetuce was recently billetted by Michele while he performed in Regina. 
 
He described her as “a wonderful mentor, she had so many insights into theatre and gave him books to read,” Long relayed. “He said he couldn’t wait to get home from rehearsal back to her place each night just to talk.”
 
Long met Morin-Desjarlais, who he describes as a wonderful dancer and performer, when she was hired to perform at the North American Indigenous Games in Regina last summer.  She returned to SNTC in the fall and performed in the Christmas show which Long says led to the biggest box office for a Christmas performance ever.
 
Long calls the loss of both women devastating not just for who they were and bought to the artistic community but he maintains in Sereda’s case, the passion she had and the particular work she did.
 
“She was a very strong, independent artist and she recognised in the community where there were voids and where more work needed to be done.”

With files from CJME’s Courtney Markewich and Sarah Mills.

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