Supplied: Ed Ellis

Drama student remembered as having a “huge love of life”

Hundreds gathered Thursday morning in Lister Conference Centre for a memorial service commemorating Tristan (Tian) Mi, a University of Alberta drama student who passed away unexpectedly on Jan. 19.

Mi came to the University of Alberta from China in 2008 in order to enrol in the drama department’s BFA Acting program. He was in his fourth and last year, and was set to graduate after completing this semester.

During the memorial service, Mi’s family was presented with certificates of attendance as a tangible memento of the time Mi spent at the University of Alberta.

“It is our hope that these certificates will be an ongoing symbol of the contributions that Tristan made to our community,” said Dean of Students Frank Robinson during the service.

The university has also awarded Mi a posthumous degree in honour of Mi’s hard work and talent. At the memorial, Mi’s father announced that he would be flying back to Edmonton from China in June in order to receive the degree on behalf of his son.

“(The degree) was particularly important to Tristan – it meant a lot to him,” said Julie Brown, Acting Chair (Administration) for the drama department. “He had huge aspirations in terms of the work that he wanted to do in the future, and to have gotten his education through our program meant a great deal to him.”

According to Brown, Mi had at one point made himself a mock degree in order to keep inspiring himself to do the hard work required in the BFA Acting program.

“There was a pretty good chance he was going to be going back to China and becoming a big star,” Brown said. “He felt very honoured to be a part of this program.”

Mi’s family also announced at the memorial that they would be establishing a drama scholarship at the U of A in honour of Mi.

The scholarship will be called the Tristan Mi Tian Memorial Scholarship, said Brown, and will be gifted at $500 per year to one BFA acting student going into their final year of study.

Part of a close-knit group of 12 drama students performing in the university’s Studio Theatre’s Season 2011-12 productions, Mi played his first role last November in David Greig’s Yellow Moon.  He was also rehearsing for a leading role in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline at the time of his death.

“He was a born performer,” said Jan Selman, a drama professor who taught Mi and directed him in Yellow Moon.  “What he was doing with us was learning the deeper things about the process of acting, as well as acting in English.”

The University of Alberta’s drama program auditions country-wide, and is an extremely competitive program to get into.

“That was extremely challenging (for him) because he’s from China, and it (wasn’t) just a matter of language, it’s the whole culture,” Selman said.

“I’m really so grateful that he had an opportunity to perform on the stage, because he worked so hard through the program, and he loved the performance part of it, so he got on the main stage and he really thrived in that setting.”

Selman added that Mi’s family, classmates, as well as everyone who worked with him are fully committed to remembering his life and “doing it honour”.

“He had a huge love of life,” Selman said. “He was an absolute delight to work with.”

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