Evidence of meeting #47 for Canadian Heritage in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was school.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gord Brown
Thank you very much.
We're going to move to Mr. Weston for seven minutes.
I know Mr. Hines had a few more words to say, so I'm going to throw that out to members of the committee if they want to let him finish up.
May 13th, 2015 / 5:05 p.m.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Thanks, Chair.
Ms. Fraser, you mentioned you had great dancers from St. Catharines, Oakville, and Burnaby, all of whom are represented on this committee, so I'm wondering if there might be some direct genetic lineage to those superb dancers we have on our committee. Who knows?
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
You all spoke with great passion about your dedication to dance. Ms. Reddin, I think you said you have been at it for over 30 years. Mr. Hines, it was really interesting to hear the different benefits you see coming from dance.
I wonder if you could close out your remarks by letting us know what brings people into dance in the first place, especially given what we heard you say, that you're going to have to have another area of employment to support yourself. It's not an easy road.
5:05 p.m.
Owner, DOAHL Academy, As an Individual
Speaking as a hip hop dancer, it is really hard. Hip hop dancers are not looked upon as having the same styles that others do, or as having strong dance styles. Because there's no written syllabus for hip hop, sometimes the foundation that's already been set there is not seen. For example, when I was dancing hip hop at 18 or 19, I was getting $200 from a Canadian artist that I danced for. Fast-forward to 2015, and I have students who are still getting the exact same amount right now. That doesn't make any sense.
Do you understand how it's...? That's why, for me, hip hop is a little bit different, as are the people engaging in it. They love it. Hip hop is vibrant, it's alive, and a lot of people are gravitating to it. We'll see that at the opening ceremonies of the Pan Am Games. At the same time, the financial payout is not the same. Sometimes that's a hardship for any dancer. Most dancers already, if they even want to pursue Juilliard, have to....
You know, we all watch movies where they're waiting tables and doing their art at the same time. They're waiting for that big moment to become that big star. Well, with hip hop it's exactly the same.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Speaking as somebody who was a great fan of the movie Flashdance, what brings young people into it? Can you give me two or three things?
This is for Ms. Reddin or Ms. Fraser.
5:05 p.m.
Director of Arts Education, Confederation Centre of the Arts
I think we are born with a desire to move, and for some people, as they get older, they have the opportunity to follow that path. Parents will come to me when their children are three, four, or five years old and say, “She's always moving around the house”, or “He's really enjoying everything that he's seeing on TV”. I think it's very innate.
You hope that you find a good school where they don't beat that out of them, to be perfectly honest, because dance schools are completely unregulated. One thing I would like to see the public become more educated about is what to look for in choosing a dance school. That's not really your purview, but certainly as a dance organization within the Canadian Dance Assembly, I think it's something we need to raise more public awareness about.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Among that array of people you named, what made them want to dance?
5:05 p.m.
Artistic Director, The School of Toronto Dance Theatre
Oh, I think it's passion. I really think it's passion. It's joy. It's love. It's wanting to move somebody.
My student from Acadie is from a dairy farm, and she desperately wants to move and dance. She wants to move people. She had a very sad event in her life—her uncle—and she did this solo for herself to commemorate this man. We were moved to tears. We were weeping in the audience.
I think in our hearts, viscerally, we want to move people. At 18 she could move an entire audience to weep. I think that's one of the things that gets us—aside from the physical joy of doing it.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Yes.
I've brought in a bill to create a national health and fitness day. One of the things I love to do is promote health and fitness. A couple of you have mentioned health and fitness benefits, both physical and mental. I'm wondering if you'd like to elaborate on that and maybe even get into some of the economic benefits you see by making Canadians healthier through dance.
5:10 p.m.
Artistic Director, The School of Toronto Dance Theatre
I can certainly say a little bit about what we do.
One of the programs we have is Creative Movement Made for Me. It's for mixed abilities. We have a really high level of expertise in our faculty for teaching children with various kinds of abilities. It could be Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, delayed development. That is a very new, burgeoning field that I think could be a huge area for dance to expand into. I think it's been shown to have great benefits.
I think that's one place where we could do a lot more work than we're doing now and be very beneficial.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Yes.
You also referred to the fitness tax credit, which I applauded. Then you mentioned the distinction between that and the arts credit, and you provoked a thought in me. Dance is being classified as being an art, and therefore qualifies for the lower tax credit. Is there a case to be made that it's actually a sport, and therefore—
5:10 p.m.
Director of Arts Education, Confederation Centre of the Arts
In dance, the parents can apply through either, so dance is accepted as a physical.... I'm just saying that's nice for us, but let's not forget the people who are in other forms of the arts.
In coming back to the question of why we dance. Similarly, why do some people pick up a paintbrush? Why do others sing? There's a love that we all have within us. For some of us, it just depends what direction it's going. Whether it's movement or whether it's singing or painting—
That train just completely left.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
All right. While you're thinking, which of you takes advantage of government programs like the Canada Council for the Arts? I don't think any of you referred to it.
5:10 p.m.
Artistic Director, The School of Toronto Dance Theatre
We don't. We're in the Canada arts training fund. As a training institution we're not eligible for funding from the Canada Council, but the professional field is. That's one of the points I was trying to make. There's no point in training a lot of dancers if the professional field is not healthy. Our support also needs to go to the Canada Council.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gord Brown
Thank you.
We're going to move to Ms. Sitsabaiesan, for seven minutes.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Thank you.
Ms. Reddin, does your organization get any funding, any national...?
5:10 p.m.
Director of Arts Education, Confederation Centre of the Arts
The Confederation Centre does receive funding from Canadian Heritage, so, yes.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Okay.
We have two organizations that do get funding. Mr. Hines, you didn't mention anything. Do you get funding for your school?
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
At the beginning of your comments you spoke of starting from literally nothing.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Exactly, and building a school and how your mentor did the same thing.
Being in the dance sector, what are the challenges in building a school, and the funding challenges you might have from your experience, Mr. Hines, as well as your experiences, Ms. Reddin and Ms. Fraser?
5:10 p.m.
Owner, DOAHL Academy, As an Individual
Building a school, the difficulty is.... I started the school just teaching hip hop. I didn't add any other elements or any other dance styles when I started. The challenges were that, again, a lot of people didn't know how to receive hip hop, even in a competitive setting. You have judges who judge hip hop, but they're not from that background. They have no background in that. The difficulty of building the school from the ground up was getting people to understand that it could be an art by itself, that hip hop was a dance style by itself. It could be a school by itself.
As I was growing it, that was part of the difficulty but also part of the excitement. A lot of kids, the teenagers right now, the young people in Canada are all about hip hop. Hip hop is a language that speaks to anybody who goes to school. That is the thing they emulate the most. That's the most popular. Again, going back to pop culture. It's one thing that helped to build my school at the same time.
The difficulty comes when it's just solely that. We're still looked down upon, as just a hip hop school. I had to amalgamate other styles to keep up the credibility. That is where my difficulties came.
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Have you applied for funding from Heritage or the Canada Council?