Finalists Announced for the 2009 Toronto Arts Foundation Awards

August 13, 2009 - Today, Toronto Arts Foundation Executive Director Claire Hopkinson announced the shortlist for the 2009 Toronto Arts Foundation Awards. Chaired by director/ playwright Andrew Moodie, the jury included broadcaster Matt Galloway, arts education consultant Susan Habkirk, curator Michelle Jacques, dancer/choreographer Hari Krishnan, author Andrew Pyper, RBC Senior Adviser Corporate Affairs Gillian Hewitt Smith, and filmmaker and former prima ballerina Veronica Tennant.

“Despite the agonizing decision making, it was my great pleasure to work with my esteemed and knowledgeable jury members,” said Chair Andrew Moodie. “With such an inspiring selection of nominees this year, a mix of unique perspectives around the jury table was critical in the selection of this year’s finalists.” Winners of the 2009 Toronto Arts Foundation Awards will be announced on Thursday, October 15, 2009 at the Mayor’s Arts Awards Lunch.

The 2009 Toronto Arts Foundation Awards, with cash prizes totaling $44,500, celebrate artists, cultural professionals and arts supporters from every creative discipline who have made significant contributions to Toronto’s artistic and cultural life. The 2009 finalists are:

Arts for Youth Award – a $15,000 cash prize established in 2007 by Martha Burns, Jim Fleck and Jim Pitblado, this award celebrates an individual, collective or organization that has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to engaging Toronto youth in the arts.

• Expect Theatre has fused social activism with the urban arts to combat violence in high-risk neighbourhoods in Toronto for over thirteen years. Under the Artistic Direction of Laura Mullin and Chris Tolley, Expect works to unleash the positive potential of youth through multidisciplinary shows, programs, and workshops that value leadership, community and social change.

• Mammalian Diving Reflex is an interdisciplinary company that creates opportunities for youth to be valued creators in their own right and have their voices respected in collaboration with adults through various youth-driven events, theatre-based performances, theoretical texts and community happenings. Most notable programs for youth include their international touring projects Haircuts by Children and The Children’s Choice Awards, and local projects Parkdale Public School vs. Queen St. West I & II. MDR is helmed by Artistic Director Darren O’Donnell and Producer Natalie De Vito.

• Supporting Our Youth (SOY) is a dynamic volunteer project that works within an anti-oppression framework to create opportunities for queer and trans youth and adults to build an inclusive, welcoming community together. The annual success of SOY’s photography and writing workshops, as well as their youth arts festival each year at Pride, prove that through artistic processes, young people who are all too often relegated to the margins of society are able to explore and expand their reality and engage with the world in ways that are creative, innovative and exciting.

The Globe and Mail Toronto Business for the Arts Award – recognizes a Toronto-based business that has made a significant contribution to the arts in Toronto. Established in 2006, this award is presented in partnership with Business for the Arts. The recipient will receive an original work of art created by Nobuo Kubota.

• In the five years since its opening, The Drake Hotel has come to be known as an energetic hub for visual and performance art as well as dining and hospitality. Through its cultural programming, The Drake strives to provide a platform for nurturing culture while exposing dining, hotel guests and the local community to the works of artists in a variety of media including musicians, dancers, painters, photographers, video, performance, and installation artists.

• Over the past ten years, Scotiabank and its employees have provided more than $23 million to Arts & Culture initiatives, including contributions in support of programs, projects and organizations in the communities in which we live and work. Scotiabank is a major supporter of the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Canadian Opera Company, The Canadian Stage Company, the National Ballet of Canada, Soulpepper Theatre Company and Scotiabank Nuit Blanche.

• Tim Hortons storeowners have supported Art Starts programs since 2006. Since that time Tim Hortons has continued to fund innovative, creative programs at Art Starts sites and other Toronto venues. The impact of Tim Hortons’ arts-based support has extended through Art Starts to over 500 children and youth ranging from 4 to 24 years of age.

RBC Emerging Artist Award – a $7,500 cash prize presented to an emerging Toronto artist working in any medium or performing arts discipline in celebration of current accomplishments and future potential. Established in 2006 by RBC Foundation, this award is intended to support the development or completion of new work. This year, in addition to increasing the value of the award from $5,000 to $7,500, RBC Foundation will also award $1,000 to each of the runners-up.

• Director and playwright Kate Cayley is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Stranger Theatre. She has created nine original works for Stranger Theatre which have been performed at festivals as well as independently in Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, New York and Istanbul. In 2004, she co-founded The Cooking Fire Theatre Festival, an event celebrating theatre, food and public space, which presents work by acclaimed local, national and international artist-run companies. She is a playwright in residence at Tarragon Theatre for the 2009-2010 season.

• Ravi Jain, Artistic Director of Why Not Theatre, works internationally as an actor, director and teacher. He is the Community Arts Associate at Canadian Stage Company and is directing the inaugural young company. A graduate of L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, Ravi received a nomination for the Ontario Arts Council’s John Hirsch award for emerging director and was most recently awarded the Urjo Kareda Residency at the Tarragon Theatre for the 2009-2010 season.

• Anusree Roy’s theatre credits include playwright and performer of Letters to my Grandma (Theatre Passe Muraille) and Pyaasa (Theatre Passe Muraille) winning two Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Performance. Roy is a playwright in residence at The Canadian Stage Company writing her new play Brothel #9 and will be the playwright in residence at Theatre Passe Muraille to write Fire as the Witness.

Muriel Sherrin Award for International Achievement in Dance – a $10,000 cash prize presented to an artist or creator who has made a contribution to the cultural life of Toronto through outstanding achievement in dance. The recipient will also have participated in international initiatives, including touring, studying abroad and participating in artist exchanges.

• Marie-Josée Chartier is a choreographer, performer, director, vocalist, teacher and the Artistic Director of Chartier Danse. As an artist she finds great inspiration in contemporary art forms and believes in bringing contemporary artists of diverse disciplines from the beginning of the creation of a new work to allow the development of layered an integrated work and foster a level of communication that is central in accomplishing a strong artistic vision. Chartier has created over thirty works that have been presented in dance series and festivals across Canada as well as internationally.

• Artistic Director of Toronto Dance Theatre since 1994, Christopher House is one of Canada’s leading choreographers. He has transformed TDT into a company known internationally for its fresh, intelligent, and provocative dance. His work is motivated by a profound curiosity about art and life. House has been resident choreographer at TDT since 1981 and has contributed over fifty works to the repertoire including Glass Houses, Four Towers, Early Departures, Vena Cava and Sly Verb.

• Menaka Thakkar is a master dancer in three classical Indian styles – Bharatanatyam, Odissi, and Kuchipudi. She settled in Canada over 38 years ago at the peak of her career and is credited with being the first artist to introduce Indian dance to Canadian audiences. She the founder of the first school of Indian dance and the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company, Canada’s premiere Indian dance company. Thakkar continues to nurture the next generations of Indian dancers and develops uncompromising choreographies which consistently change the face of Indian dance in Canada.

Rita Davies and Margo Bindhardt Cultural Leadership Award – a $10,000 cash prize sponsored by Margo Bindhardt’s family and Toronto Arts Foundation. This award is presented biennially to an individual who has demonstrated creative cultural leadership in the development of arts and culture in Toronto. Administrators, volunteers, artists and creators are eligible for consideration.

• 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. With her late husband Lawrence Adams, she founded 15 Dance Laboritorium – Toronto’s first experimental dance venue; published the newspapers SPILL and Canadian Dance News; created Visus Foundation to videotape dance activity in Canada; and founded Dance Collection Danse, Canada’s national dance archives and publishing house. DCD has published over 37 dance books and produces a semi-annual magazine.

• Actor and director Sally Leilani Jones is founder of Rasik Arts, dedicated to South Asian Theatre, especially contemporary works, and to South Asian theatre practitioners and writers around the world. A long time advocate for diversity in the theatre, Sally directed the first production of Siwze Bansi is Dead in Toronto in 1986. She has taught acting at Erindale College, Queen’s University, and University of Alaska, and is an assessor for the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute’s Arts Fellowship competition.

• Ross Manson, actor, director, translator, visionary, creator, advocate, activist, teacher and mentor, is described by Peggy Baker as ‘one of the most vibrant, inspired and hard working people in Toronto’s performing arts community’. As the founding Artistic Director of the internationally acclaimed Volcano Theatre, Ross has taken his company across Canada and around the world, and has brought back the world’s theatre innovators to Toronto artists for workshops in craft and performance. Ross has been a forceful advocate for the arts, founding the innovative Go7 Arts Pass and co-founding The Wrecking Ball, an on-line political arts blog. Ross goes beyond his duties as an organizer of artist-friendly housing. As well as numerous Dora nominations and awards, Ross is the winner of both a Harold award for community service and a KM Hunter Award for excellence as an emerging theatre artist.