Welcome to DCD Labs, the development site of dcd.ca
We are working on a completely new way of bringing people together around Canadian dance.
*** This site may change without notice as it evolves ***
Dance Collection Danse is a unique organization straddling the performing arts, museum and archival communities. At its core, DCD exists to preserve Canada’s dance heritage and share it internationally through programming such as virtual and live exhibits, screenings, lectures, workshops, education, dance animation, catalogues, annual magazine, books, and by supporting research.
Canada’s dance history is filled with remarkable people who took risks and pushed the development of the art form. Dance history reflects moments in our political history, immigration history, military history, social history, feminist history and gay rights. It is an ephemeral art form and requires special care to ensure that the art and the artists are not lost to time.
WE ARE PAST. WE ARE PRESENT. WE ARE THE FUTURE.
As DCD envisions its exciting prospects in concert with a new “home”, we invite dance enthusiasts to join us in the process of participation and revitalization. A Place-To-Be is where we are heading as we share our vision for acknowledging the past, reflecting the present and imagining the future.
By ensuring dance’s continuing status as a vital cultural expression, we champion the art form’s inspiring legacies, acting as an advocate for Canadian dance by connecting deeply to the community’s shared past.
Through DCD’s expertise, leadership, unique collections and national networks, we celebrate our continuing role as the principal guardians of the dance arts, honouring the artists who have built, and continue to build upon, the ground on which we stand and from where we move forward.
A Gathering-Place. A Locale. A Space. A Facility. A Domain. A Home …where the artifacts, the artists, the creations, the welcomed visitors, can assemble and share the legacies that have informed the ever-evolving art of dance in Canada.
People
MIRIAM ADAMS, C.M.
Co-founder/ Advisor
Miriam Adams, Co-founder/Director of Dance Collection Danse, is a graduate of the National Ballet School and former dancer with The National Ballet of Canada. She and her late husband, principal dancer Lawrence Adams, went on to teach, choreograph and found 15 Dance Laboratorium, Toronto’s first experimental dance venue. The Adamses became publishers, producing the newspapers SPILL and Canadian Dance News, and created Visus Foundation, established to videotape dance activity in Canada. In 1983, they initiated the ENCORE! ENCORE! reconstruction project, designed to rescue Canadian choreographic works created in the 1940s and 1950s. This led to the founding of Dance Collection Danse, Canada’s national dance archives and publishing house. Miriam Adams has overseen the publishing of 39 books and is the Publisher and Editor of Dance Collection Danse Magazine. She has been a board member of the Toronto Arts Council, the Dance Umbrella of Ontario, the Nightingale Arts Foundation, Artscape, Judy Jarvis Dance Foundation, the Dancer Transition Resource Centre and was named Adjunct Professor at York University in 2006. She received a Dance in Canada Service Award; a Mayor’s Medal of Service; and, with Lawrence, the Dance Ontario Award for her contributions to dance. In 2009, she won the Rita Davies and Margo Bindhardt Cultural Leadership Award. Miriam was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2011 and is a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
DCD Co-founder Lawrence Adams passed away in 2003. To learn more about Lawrence and the beginnings of Dance Collection Danse, CLICK HERE.
AMY BOWRING
Executive and Curatorial Director
Amy Bowring holds an honours B.A. in Fine Arts Studies from York University and a Master’s degree in Journalism from the University of Western Ontario. She is the Director of Collections and Research at Dance Collection Danse where she was mentored by founders Lawrence and Miriam Adams, and has been involved with the organization in various capacities since 1993. She is one of Canada’s foremost advocates for the study and preservation of Canadian dance heritage.
A dance writer and historian, she is also the founder of the Canadian Society for Dance Studies. She has written historical essays and articles for books and magazines including the Canadian Encyclopedia, International Dictionary of Modern Dance, Encyclopedia of Theatre Dance in Canada, Dance Chronicle, Right to Dance: Dancing for Rights, Canadian Dance: Visions and Stories, Renegade Bodies: Canadian Dance in the 1970s and The Dance Current, where she was also the copy editor for 13 years. She has curated virtual exhibitions on dance artists Nancy Lima Dent and Alison Sutcliffe and curated several live exhibitions including Dancing Through Time: Toronto’s Dance History, 1900-1980 and Canada’s Pre-eminent Showman: The Artistry of Alan Lund. She guest lectures widely and teaches dance history in Ryerson University’s theatre program.
Amy is a co-recipient of the 2002 Toronto Emerging Dance Artist Award for her work as a dance writer. She was a board member for Dance Media Group, sat on the steering committee that founded the Canadian Dance Assembly, and has served as a member of the Discipline Advisory Committee for Dance at the Canada Council for the Arts. She is currently on the Advisory Board of the international journal Dance Chronicle.
JAY RANKIN
Administrative Director
Jay is a leader in the Canadian professional dance community with management experience in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and Winnipeg. Jay has a history of leading organizations to new levels of success financially and organizationally. His expertise extends to strategic planning, programming, human resources, touring, board development, financial management, marketing and PR, government relations, design and production. He has worked as Executive Director of Ballet BC, Managing Director of Toronto Dance Theatre, as directeur général at BJM Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal, and as a manager for many dance organizations across Canada. Jay continues to work independent performers and as producer for theatre artist Tomson Highway.
ELISABETH DOBSON
Metcalf Foundation Intern
An archivist and historian based in Toronto, Elisabeth has a BFA in Performance (Production) with a Minor in History from Ryerson University and will soon have her Master’s in Museum Studies from the University of Toronto. She originally trained in theatre costume and props before being introduced to public history studies and shifting focus to dance costume and history and its lack of representation in museums. In 2017 she wrote her undergraduate thesis Pas de Display: Conserving, Preserving, Displaying, and Interpreting Ballet Costumes in Museum Settings. She has been a T.A. at the Ryerson history and fashion departments and worked with The National Ballet of Canada, DCD, and Kaeja d’Dance. Her work combines social history, material culture, production skills, and museum studies to create critical approaches to preserving and displaying Canadian dance history.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Jane Spooner, Chair
Laurie Nemetz, Vice-Chair
Robert Johnston, Secretary/Treasurer
Peter Mak
Kevin A. Ormsby
Nadia Potts
Jenna Ward
STAFF
Miriam Adams, C.M.
Co-founder/Advisor
Amy Bowring
Executive and Curatorial Director
Jay Rankin
Administrative Director
Vickie Fagan
Director of Development /Producer, DCD Hall of Fame
Michael Ripley
Marketing Co-ordinator / Sales
Beth Dobson
Metcalf Foundation Performing Arts Intern
HONORARY ADVISORS
Stephanie Ballard
Iris Bliss
Marc Boivin
Peter Boneham, C.M.
Ann Kipling Brown
Anne Flynn
Margie Gillis, O.C.
Jean Grand-Maître
Gerry Gray
Linde Howe-Beck
Allana Lindgren
Susan Macpherson
Evan McKie
Dianne Milligan
Colleen Quigley
Jill Reid
Rina Singha
Veronica Tennant, C.C.
Max Wyman, O.C.