Canadian Heritage Committee on May 13th, 2015

[The Chair (Mr. Gordon Brown (Leeds—Grenville, CPC)), Conservative, Gord Brown]

Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to call meeting number 47 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to order. Today we are continuing our study of dance in Canada, and we have a number of witnesses with us in the first hour.

Before we get to that, I'd like to thank vice-chair Monsieur Dion for stepping in. I had to table some reports in the House and made it just in time.

Thank you to our witnesses for coming today. First, from the Canada Council for the Arts, we have Caroline Lussier, who is head of the dance section, as well as Alexis Andrew, who is head of the research and evaluation section. From Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet we have Jeff Herd, who is the executive director. From RUBBERBANDance Group we have Victor Quijada, choreographer and co-artistic director, as well as Fannie Bellefeuille, who is the general manager.

Each of our three groups will have up to eight minutes.

We're going to start with our friends from the Canada Council for the Arts. You have the floor.

[Caroline Lussier, Head, Dance Section, Canada Council for the Arts]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is my great pleasure to present to you the work that the Canada Council for the Arts is doing in the area of dance. I would like to thank the committee for giving us this opportunity.

The mandate of the Canada Council for the Arts is to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts. In the area of dance, the Canada Council for the Arts supports professional dance in Canada, in all of its forms and expressions, through policies, programs and initiatives that contribute to the development of a healthy ecology of this art form and fosters a strong presence of Canadian artists in dance across the country and abroad. The Canada Council for the Arts shares with Canadian Heritage in supporting the various stakeholders in the area of dance. The council supports artists and dance companies in their research, creation, production, performance and touring process.

The programs of the Canada Council for the Arts are currently undergoing an extensive review. The design of the programs is based on the council's convictions and core values, including respect for diversity in expression. What comes to mind is Canada's regional diversity, the contemporary practices of aboriginal peoples, as well as the diversity of cultural and racial origins and traditions.

The council supports all stages in the creation of a choreographed work, from the concept to its performance before an audience, in a way that fosters the creation of quality works so that the interaction with the audience is as rich as possible. In terms of the working conditions of dance artists, it is important to know that adequate compensation of artists is one of the evaluation criteria for files submitted to the council.

To illustrate this support, let me share a few numbers from 2014-15: 64 dance companies — professional, of course — spread out across the country, from east to west, received recurring support. We have also supported 68 projects to produce choreographed work, 40 research projects and 28 professional development projects, all led by artists who have shown excellence in their approach and artistic merit in their projects.

Few dance companies have been established in the regions. So it is important that the Canada Council for the Arts support the spread of choreographed works so that audiences from all regions across Canada has access to professional dance productions. Through the council's support for dance tours, it extends the lifespan of dance works and, in so doing, prolongs and increases job opportunities for dancers.

National tours promote access to dance across Canada and increase the knowledge and appreciation of different forms of dance by Canadian audiences. Last week, several stakeholders highlighted the importance of developing dance audiences in Canada.

Through its support for international tours, the council develops the knowledge and appreciation of dance in Canada beyond our borders and encourages a dialogue and exchanges between artists from Canada and other countries. In 2014-15, the Canada Council for the Arts supported 27 national tours and 23 international tours.

Let me give you a few national examples: the Marie Chouinard Company in Montreal toured five cities, which provided employment for 20 days to 16 dance professionals. Kaha:wi, an aboriginal dance company from Toronto, did a tour of western Canada for a families and schools and provided jobs to 10 people for 37 days.

Internationally, the National Ballet of Canada shone in New York City, the dance Mecca, for six shows. Two companies distinguished themselves in China: the Royal Winnipeg Ballet — and Jeff Herd will be able to tell you about that — and Sherbrooke's Sursaut, a dance company for young audiences. Sursaut also did a two-week tour in Mexico, providing a tour contract of 15 days to 10 dance professionals.

To facilitate tours of shows throughout our very large country, to build stronger and more efficient tours, the presenters formed a pan-Canadian network and a number of regional networks. We recognize the importance of these networks and support their projects regularly.

Over the years, to make up for a lack of resources, the dance community has created and equipped itself with some remarkable tools.

Dancers are champions of sharing resources, including human resources, equipment, studios and choreography centres. Their inventiveness knows no bounds.

The council recognizes the need for organizations and support projects in the community and provides these organizations financial support within its means.

This is a very broad overview of the support that the Canada Council for the Arts gives to professional dance in Canada, but the council's actions extend beyond the professional reality of dance and covers the entire ecosystem, as my colleague, Alexis, will tell you about.

[Alexis Andrew, Head, Research and Evaluation Section, Canada Council for the Arts]

Thank you, Caroline.

The Canada Council, in partnership with the Ontario Arts Council, has undertaken a multi-year study of dance in Canada. The purpose of the dance mapping study has been to get a clearer picture of the ecosystem of dance in Canada and to understand its social impacts.

An important aspect of the dance mapping study, which sets it apart from other Canada Council research, is that it has been holistic in looking at both professional and non-professional or leisure dance. This helps to situate what the council supports, professional not-for-profit dance, in a much broader and engaged ecosystem.

So far there have been six research projects undertaken, with the seventh and final project currently under way. I will focus my remarks today on the findings of the Yes I Dance survey, which was released earlier this year, as it responds to the committee's interest in understanding how dance affects Canadian society.

This landmark study, while not statistically representative, gathered data from over 8,000 respondents aged 16 and older who dance, teach dance, and choreograph dance in some type of organized or ongoing way. Questions captured the breadth and diversity of dance in Canada. In many ways the survey showed how important dance is in the lives of those who engage in it, whether they are professionals or leisure dance participants. This can be seen in the amount of time spent on dance, the history of involvement, and the variety of dance forms that respondents are engaged in.

The survey revealed that 80% of respondents engage in more than one form of dance. Notably, 190 forms are represented, from ballet to Bollywood. Leisure dance participants spend an average of six and a half hours per week dancing, while professionals spend almost 18 hours. Survey respondents have a lifelong involvement in dance, ranging from almost 17 years for leisure dancers to almost 24 years for professionals.

Why do people dance? Motivations include enjoyment, artistic expression, fitness, and social connection. In fact, three out of four respondents say it is part of a healthy lifestyle, bringing exercise and fitness into their lives. It provides them a sense of mental and physical well-being, stimulation, and escape from the stresses of daily life.

The survey findings have been visualized in an online interactive dance wheel that allows viewers to learn about different dance forms, where they are practised, and about the people who dance them. The full survey report is available on the council's website. It helps to illustrate the impact of dance on people's lives, and helps to raise awareness of the incredible diversity of Canadian dance.

The final component of the dance mapping study is a look at the social impacts of dance organizations, such as the benefits to health, identity, and social cohesion among other factors. The results will be available later this year.

As Kate Cornell of the Canadian Dance Assembly said last week in her presentation, the findings of the study are of vital use to the sector in understanding and articulating its impact. We hope they will be useful to you as well. A handout has been prepared that outlines the major research components.

Thank you.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you very much.

We will now move to Mr. Herd. You have the floor for eight minutes.

[Jeff Herd, Executive Director, Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet]

Thank you very much.

I want to begin by thanking the committee for its interest and for the unique opportunity for us to talk about Canadian dance.

Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet is the oldest ballet in Canada and one of the oldest in North America. We used to call it the oldest continuously operating, but there are too many qualifiers there.

First established in 1949, we are celebrating our 75th anniversary and have been named a “national historic event”. We received our royal charter in 1953, and we are also the first royal ballet in the British Commonwealth and the first charter given by Her Royal Highness.

We recently commissioned a piece in honour of our 75th anniversary based on the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and are about to tour it throughout Canada, bringing the arts and indigenous communities closer together to continue the discussion and understanding of reconciliation.

Dance tells Canadian stories by reflecting our society on its stages. Many classical dance forms in Canada are narratives and tell universal stories within the Canadian context, such as the beloved story of Peter Pan, as told by our Canadian choreographer and RWB graduate, Jordan Morris. Canadian choreography does convey the Canadian experience. When we tour Mark Godden's Going Home Star - Truth and Reconciliation, a story by Joseph Boyden about Canada's residential schools, the issue will be shared and subsequently discussed.

Dance encourages and engages in cultural, sociological, political, and ecological discourse. Based on these few examples, and many more, it's clear that Canadian choreographers excel at telling stories that reflect many Canadian issues.

First and foremost, we need to better recognize the work of Canadian choreographers by supporting the Canada Council for the Arts.

In terms of healthy Canadians, dance is a communal experience that revolves around teamwork, discipline, and sheer joy. For many researchers the health benefits of dance are tangible and measurable. To dancers at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School it's about the immeasurable value of dance. Regular dance lessons, regardless of the form, are good for the heart and the soul. Dance reduces the occurrence of obesity and helps children to develop focus and confidence. It also helps seniors with dementia and Parkinson's to better communicate.

For example, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet has partnered with the National Ballet School on the sharing dance initiative, which you heard about on May 4. In 2017 the RWB will work to get one million Canadians dancing on Sharing Dance Day.

The connection between dance and health is evident and makes dance unique amongst many art forms. Dance can be extremely valuable to us because it can provide movement to segments of the population not necessarily motivated by sport. In short, dance promotes a healthy lifestyle, but you don't even have to get up because experiencing the dance performance also contributes to better mental health and stability.

In Finland, a recent study found that people who attend dance or classical concerts are more likely to report good health and quality of life, even after adjusting for other factors. Fit Canadians means less money spent on health care. We hope the federal government will encourage Canadians to dance and attend dance, such as performances by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, because benefits are tenfold.

Another interesting initiative illustrating the power of dance beyond the arts is Les Grands Ballets' creation of the national centre for dance therapy. This centre, based on clinical and medical research, training, and front-line services in dance movement therapy is the only one of its kind on the international scene. Created two years ago, this unique centre pilots some 14 projects in criminology, eating disorders, aging, oncology, rehabilitation, pediatrics, and adolescent and adult psychology. So far it's rallied the services of 30 Canadian partners to include hospitals, medical research centres, universities, school boards, and seniors homes. The success of this centre is such that the Wall Street Journal has echoed its impact for the community.

A little bit about jobs in dance.... The Royal Winnipeg Ballet employs hundreds of Canadians throughout the course of the season, but it also employs some temporary foreign workers. Often the temporary foreign workers begin their relationship with the company at the school of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. The high calibre of teaching attracts international students who then contribute to the Canadian economy, on average, for two years. At the school, these international students will be seen by Canadian artistic directors and choreographers. If suitable, these students will be offered contracts within our company and companies throughout the world.

This important cultural exchange, which is at the heart of the dance community, is obviously very expensive. We're spending thousands of dollars per year, as we all are, on the temporary foreign worker program, and we hope that we will see something moving into the area of the international mobility program instead of the temporary foreign worker program.

The importance of arts on the Canadian stage and the international stage cannot be underestimated. Our reputation as a society is exemplified by our business, our sport, and our culture. The ability to take our artistic products into the world reflects on us as a nation. The recent initiative by the Canada Council to support international touring is very helpful in addressing this aspect for the arts. I encourage more such initiatives for this export, as well as, and very important in our thoughts going forward, the ability to import foreign companies.

The transition from dance to other careers is a fact of life, based on the athleticism of the dancer and the relatively short career. Many years ago, the creation of the dancer transition centre aided the retiring of dancers with support and training for their next careers. As in major sports, the career is very short, and the second career benefits immensely from the teamwork, discipline, and focus of trained dancers, along with their new skills, and aids in the evolution of the person into their new career.

Also, the continued support through the Canada arts training fund and the tax exemption for young artist training are important initiatives for the continued evolution and growth of the arts in Canada.

I thank you very much for your time and attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you very much. We'll now move to the RUBBERBANDance Group.

You have the floor for up to eight minutes.

[Victor Quijada, Choreographer and Co-Artistic Director, RUBBERBANDance Group]

Thank you, and thank you to the committee for the opportunity to speak to you today.

I'm a choreographer and the co-artistic director of RUBBERBANDance Group, a Montreal-based company that creates, produces, and disseminates stage works and film works. The company tours extensively, performing full-length stage works and repertory programs across Canada and internationally. Our award-winning short film projects have been screened around the world.

What has distinguished me as a choreographer is a melding of influences that come from contemporary, classical, and hip hop or street dance forms. I'm recognized for not simply cutting and pasting these influences together, but for deconstructing and developing these forms into a new, distinct aesthetic. My artistic vision is a result of my personal background.

I grew up in Los Angeles and I was surrounded by a hip hop culture from a young age. My first exposure to dance was through street-corner breakdance battles and freestyle circles in the clubs. Late in my adolescence I began a more formal training at an arts high school and was introduced to classical and contemporary forms of movement and composition. I became familiar with conceptual art and notions such as cubism, surrealism, and minimalism. This is where a cross-pollination began inside of me where high art would influence what I had experienced through hip hop.

But only after securing contracts as a dancer with top choreographers and performing with major contemporary ballet and post-modern companies in New York and in Montreal would I eventually take on the role of choreographer myself. So since 2002 I've created over a dozen works for my company, RUBBERBANDance Group, and taken on a dozen commissions from other dance companies in North America and in Europe. From 2007 to 2011, I was an artist-in-residence at Place des Arts, which is where we've created and premiered the past four RUBBERBANDance creations.

These creations are partly funded by various types of co-producers, including presenting organizations like Montreal's Place des Arts; Danse Danse; or funding programs like CanDance here in Canada or the national dance project in the United States.

Depending on the show we are touring, the company employs about six or seven dancers by project, usually totalling 35 weeks of work. We average about 50 performances a year, typically performing in theatres that seat between 300 and 900, and we'll perform between one and five shows in each venue. We often hold post-performance sessions so we can exchange with the audience. In each city that we perform in we also offer master classes and workshops or lectures and demonstrations to young audiences.

As a medium-sized established company, we receive support at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels. The real challenge for me in the past years has been finding the right dancers to work with. Up to this point it's been extremely rare to encounter a dancer who has a background like mine with extensive experience in classical, contemporary, and street hip hop forms. This has forced me to become an expert at training dancers who come from one side of the dance spectrum or the other. It becomes necessary to transmit information that a dancer might be missing and through a rigorous training process prepare them to work in my style. In this way, being pioneers in a new, burgeoning genre of contemporary hip hop means that the formal academic dance institutions have not yet been equipped to train the dancers in an updated manner and that responsibility has fallen on me.

The RUBBERBAND movement method is a technique that I developed to do just that, and it prepares dancers in a new way that considers all the advancements in movement invention that we've seen in recent times. In financial terms, this adds several weeks to a normal choreographic process for us, which is already one of our most costly activities.

I would compare the training that is necessary for our work to the equivalent of an actor needing to learn a new language to perform a new role. Only, in our case, without knowing the physical language that we work in, meaning the training of the body to work upright as well as in the inversions, not only does the choreography not read but it is also dangerous for the dancer.

Now, even though I've developed the RUBBERBAND method to prepare dancers to work in my signature style, on the flip side I've seen how the method has a transformative effect on dancers, whether they work in my choreographic style or not. In a way, it's upgrading a computer's operating system, so I've begun teaching RUBBERBAND method master classes in dozens of universities and conservatories and I recently spent a semester training and creating a work in the dance department at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Next year I will serve as a visiting artist on faculty at the new Glorya Kaufman School of Dance at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Typically, the academic institutions are behind the curve as to what artistic innovations are happening on the front lines, but they are slowly catching up.

It is because the dance world in general has felt the appeal that hip hop influenced contemporary dance has that companies like ours have shown that hip hop influence doesn't need to remain only in the flash and the fireworks, but that it can be used in subtler ways and even to speak about the human condition.

As dancers are expected more and more to have skills that come from all ends of the dance spectrum, it is important to consider that for a company like ours especially, grants that allow for apprenticing and training are extremely important.

Le Conseil des arts de Montréal has the DémART program, which encourages internships to newly arrived or first-generation Canadian citizens. There are grants available at the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and also at the Canada Council for the Arts that support professional dancers in continuing training in their professional development.

Our company dancers and apprentices have benefited very much from this assistance, and I believe that this support for dancers is more important than ever.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you very much for your presentations. We're now going to move to the questions.

It will be a seven-minute round and we're going to start with Mr. Hillyer.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, everyone, for coming today.

Victor, I have a couple of questions for you.

One thing that has been on my mind is how we can get more young men or boys involved in dancing. I just went to my daughter's dance competition, and there were lots and lots of girls; probably two out of 100 were boys.

Do you have any thoughts on what we can do to help boys see dance as a legitimate way to enjoy themselves? Right now I think there's a problem, with their thinking that it's not manly or something. Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Victor Quijada]

How long do I have to respond?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

You have six and a half minutes.

[Victor Quijada]

Okay.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I don't mind if you take the whole time on that question, because that's what's on my mind.

[Victor Quijada]

The good news is that it's already happening; we don't have to do much to help it along.

What I mean by that is that we're in a new era. I'm part of what I call a post-hip hop generation, and the biggest shift in the landscape of dance that I've seen involves two things. Number one is the proliferation of hip hop, which was at one time a subculture and is now everywhere in mainstream pop culture. For those forms, the dance specifically, it is a male-dominated world. Break, breaking, breakdance, krumping are historically male-dominated. It's very hard to imagine those styles of dance as anything other than the most manly exhibitions of power, dynamicism, and expression.

A wave has already begun, and it's not just at a street dance level. I started the company in 2002, and at that time it was a very innovative, I would say provocative, idea to put hip hop dancers who were not formally trained through ballet schools on stage in a contemporary context. Fifteen years later I teach a master class at the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal . What used to be the case—for every 30 women there might be two men—is now a case of having 15 men and 15 women, and those young men are coming from hip hop backgrounds. There's a big shift happening.

How do the institutions that have for so long followed the traditional path of classical ballet, contemporary dance update themselves? It's already happening. I think the private dance sector is a bit ahead of some of the institutions. Whereas a private dance studio in the past might have taught ballet, tap, and jazz, twenty years later—now, in the present day—they're teaching ballet, contemporary, and some sort of hip hop: sometimes break, sometimes one of the funk styles. You have these young boys finding a way, and the bridge is instantaneous. As soon as they begin to train their body, they are already exposed to these other forms.

That's my story. My story at a certain time was very rare, but it will become less and less rare. I see it happening. In Montreal it has already happened.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Herd, would you say that it's starting to happen in the non-hip hop world as well?

[Jeff Herd]

We're seeing an increase. There was recently an article on the National Ballet School in Toronto about its seeing an increase in attendance by young men.

One thing we've been doing in the larger institutions is subsidize training for young men. There's a lot of hip hop—it's probably our fastest-growing form. We have three units in the Royal Winnipeg Ballet: a recreational school, a professional school, and the company itself.

We're seeing an uptake in the recreational school. We also did movement and dance for sport, and it has proven very valuable. We didn't continue it this past year, but it is something that will grow back. What it gives you is strength, agility, and ability to move. It's especially useful for things such as football and hockey. Once you get hit too many times in football, I think it loses its impact, though.

We find that there's a lot of de-gentrification of the ballet image, and I think this has improved attendance. We are seeing an upswing. This is anecdotal information through the Canadian Dance Assembly, but we did start seeing an upswing in attendance among both people in the audience and also the practitioners in dance, as was mentioned.

We are seeing a slight improvement, but I think the biggest thing is to continue to make it accessible and acceptable. A lot of the contemporary dance that see on television and in film has opened it up and helped to de-gentrify it as well.

But we are seeing more and more.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'll ask another quick question then. Part of the problem, and we've found this with film as well, is the marketing. I've never heard of your group, but you seem to perform quite a bit. How do we get more people to be aware of performances like yours? How much would it cost for the general public show and how do we get people to show up?

[Victor Quijada]

I don't know if we have that much time, but there is really a commercial side to dance. There's So You Think You Can Dance and the dance competitions that are happening and the dance films. Talk about an upswing in the presence of dance in film. There's a new dance film, a feature film like Step Up or Save the Last Dance or whatever the titles are, every year. There are all these films. That on the commercial side brings interest and then the grassroots....

We're talking here about classical ballet and contemporary dance. Of all the performing arts disciplines, music and theatre and so on, dance is really the most marginal. Neither overnight nor in the next 10 years will contemporary dance be as accessible as theatre, because there are no words, because music is universal, and—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you.

We're going to move to Ms. Sitsabaiesan for seven minutes.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you all for being here.

Ms. Andrew, you were speaking about the Yes I Dance survey.

Having been a professional dancer for over 25 years, I thought it was really good to see the dance survey and I checked that out on your website before as well. It's very exciting to see that dance and the many different forms of dance are now part of mainstream talk. That includes krumping and so on. Who knew what krumping was 10 years ago? The average person didn't know.

That's great. We're seeing the dance wheel. The dance form that I did for 25 years, bharatanatyam, is on the dance wheel, which is amazing. Thank you for doing that and bringing the other types of dance forms, which tell the immigration story of Canada. I guess it started off with the aboriginal art forms and went on to ballet being introduced and so on.

How was the sample chosen? Did you just do a call-out?

[Alexis Andrew]

There have been a few stages to the study. Part of it was an inventory, essentially, of membership-based associations and different organizations that supported dance at both the professional and non-professional levels. The survey was sent out through those contacts.

As we said, it's not representative. There were over 8,000 respondents, which is a great response rate, but because we don't know what the total population is, we can't extrapolate from that to a broader Canadian stance. This was for these respondents.

However, the depth of information drawn from the survey was quite astonishing, because it wasn't just the 8,000 responses but also the literally hundreds and hundreds of open-ended comments about what dance meant to people in their lives.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I was trying to figure out how you could have gotten the sample, because the 8,000 respondents would have come from, I guess, your membership organizations, and there are so many other dance companies I know of in little Toronto itself that are not membership-based and that are probably not part of any larger organization. It would be really amazing to see if we could actually somehow capture that real snapshot of dance in this country.

Mr. Herd, you had mentioned the international mobility program, rather than the temporary foreign worker program. I know that labour mobility is part of NAFTA and it was a priority that was mentioned even when NAFTA was signed. Just to make it clear for everybody else, what do you mean when you say you would prefer to see the international mobility program rather than the temporary foreign worker program for our dancers?

[Jeff Herd]

In dealing with members of the government, we've talked about the inadvertent byproduct of the recent problems and issues they've had to face. What we are looking for.... When people come here to train and dance, or to practice dance, we do have all the regulations under the temporary foreign worker program. After a period of time, the only way for someone to stay here is to become a Canadian citizen, and many of our people have gone on to that track.

What we are looking for is something that gives us a bit more flexibility. There are people here from eastern Europe, Asia, and all over the world who intend to dance here to be part of it, but will also pursue careers throughout the world and don't necessarily want to become Canadian citizens, and vice versa across the U.S. border, etc. I've had the good benefit of working for a Canadian company in the U.S., and we come in under a different kind of petition, which is people of unique ability and things like that. I did have experience at Cirque du Soleil, where we had very special criteria for artists coming into Canada.

We are not looking for anything in terms of special treatment and all that. We are just looking for something that really reinforces our ability to bring in artists reasonably quickly. I had a great deal of difficulty bringing Twyla Tharp, a very famous choreographer, into Canada to create a ballet.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

The flip side of that, and I am going to throw this out to any of you who would like to respond, is whether we are doing enough to develop our own domestic artists. In order to get good choreographers, you are looking all around the world. What do we need to do to develop our own local talent and make sure that we have the professionals we can rely on, rather than looking to the world all the time?

Anybody can jump in.