Canadian Heritage committee  I wouldn't say so actually, although we have to be more careful because when we're introducing something new, then there is a difference in the way dancers work. In the olden days, actually you would dance on anything. I sprained my ankle on the first day of a nine-week tour. T

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. There are three things: support for under-represented dance forms is very important, and that goes along with what Greg said; stable funding for excellence in professional training is critical; and absolutely the profession itself must be supported, and as Peggy said, doing

Canadian Heritage committee  There are injuries, absolutely. They typically are things like sprained ankles, shin splints, sometimes physical exhaustion. We have a physiotherapist who is one of our faculty members. He's not actually paid as a physiotherapist, but he advises us. We have a whole series of prac

Canadian Heritage committee  International students, I think it's about 10%, maybe, 10% to 16% max, probably. We look for really good teachers in really good centres in recreational programs. We know where some of them are. As I was saying, Ottawa has a very good program in the performing arts high school,

Canadian Heritage committee  There are some very good programs. There's an Ontario curriculum, for example, but it's not delivered particularly well throughout the provinces. It's delivered in some places quite well, and in other places it's neglected.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think that—I'll just say it—we're extremely fortunate. We're very well assisted by the Canada arts training fund. It is a professional training program—

Canadian Heritage committee  It's a three-year program where dancers are coming in full time, every day, for three years, so there's a slight difference there between that and recreational programs. But we're very well funded. We're about 30% government funded from various sources.

Canadian Heritage committee  I can just add to that. We're quite rigorously assessed by the Canadian arts training fund. Our school is quite highly assessed, so we're quite successful. I think the rigour is very important and very well appreciated.

Canadian Heritage committee  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,

Canadian Heritage committee  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 fiel

Canadian Heritage committee  Clearly.

Canadian Heritage committee  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 d

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you all for the opportunity to speak with you today. I'm honoured by the invitation and I am heartened by your interest in the art form to which my colleagues and I are so dedicated. I am the artistic director of the School of Toronto Dance Theatr