Industry committee  To my knowledge, and I am certainly not an expert in indigenous dance, that is more of a verbal passing on of the legacy of the dance—

Industry committee  —and there are knowledge keepers who keep those dances. It's quite a different system.

Industry committee  To my knowledge, no jurisdiction is currently offering royalties on these movements, these emotes that are happening in video games. The point I was trying to make is that the definition of choreographic work needs to be a little more flexible and not so much focused on narrative ballet in the Copyright Act, so that five or 10 or 50 years from now, there is the potential to have this conversation when Drake creates a phenomenal dance sensation and suddenly copyrights it and then we go down this slippery slope.

Industry committee  When Beyoncé liberally borrowed from De Keersmaeker, the industry celebrated. There was a lot of attention on esoteric contemporary dance, more interest and probably exactly what you said; more tickets purchased and more focus on that artist.

Industry committee  There isn't much currently, to be honest. I absolutely adore the Guelph contemporary dance festival. I lived in Guelph for a couple of years so I'm really glad you brought it up. A contemporary dance artist, choreographer or company would go into a contract with the festival, for example, to present the work.

Industry committee  Again, as I said to Ms. Caesar-Chavannes, it's about the line between a movement—and I used the example of jazz hands—and an actual complete work of art with a recognized author attached to it. I'm not necessarily saying we need to copyright individual movements and give royalties to individual movements, but there needs to be a recognition of—particularly in the case of Canadians—the work that they're doing.

Industry committee  Exactly.

Industry committee  It's very subjective.

Industry committee  Yes, but I would really like to hear Patrick's and Elizabeth's opinion on this, because this is certainly not my area of expertise.

Industry committee  I think that by broadening the definition of dance to include digital platforms and possibly referencing video games, you could get at this specificity that you're talking about. I'm so glad that you brought it up because there is definitely attention to the fact that this is falling on racial lines and that choreographers from the black community are not getting recognition for this work.

Industry committee  Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak today on behalf of the Canadian Dance Assembly. I represent the Canadian Dance Assembly, a national service organization, and we partner with 10 provincial dance organizations to serve the dance sector, which includes hundreds of companies, schools and individual dancers across the country.

Canadian Heritage committee  And on the move, for sure.

Canadian Heritage committee  Absolutely. As I mentioned in the beginning, I have about 100 member organizations. I don't have exact statistics, but I can definitely get you those numbers. For example, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens I believe has close to 30 temporary foreign workers.

Canadian Heritage committee  I can certainly speak to my members and get the exact number for you.

Canadian Heritage committee  We're a really interesting NASO. When I sit in a room with my colleagues from the Canadian Arts Coalition, we're one of the only National Arts Service Organizations that services both individuals and organizations. We have partnered with ACTRA Fraternal Benefit Society in providing affordable, accessible health care to individual dancers, which is absolutely essential—not just for their kids to go to the dentist, but also if they have injuries.