Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for directing that question.
Without the DTRC, quite certainly I would not have reached the place I have in my life without the kind of support it provided back in 2002 when I completed or retired from being a member of the Toronto Dance Theatre. I think what I've learned over this trajectory of the last 10 years or so, now having completed my Ph.D. in nursing, is to really capitalize on the skills, the discipline, the motivation, the creative thinking that I developed as a dancer. It was done through the DTRC, not only through their financial support, but also through their life support in understanding that these skills can carry you through to another career, and how similar a dance career is to a nursing career. I'm now conducting research with disabled children and using dance as a method to understand movement in a new way and using different kinds of dance-based theory as well to be able to understand how we can improve the lives of young children with disabilities.
On a number of levels I could not have done it without the support of the DTRC and the trust they gave me in trusting myself and leading now toward work that I'm extremely excited about and I hope contributes to Canadian society.
