Toronto Arts Foundation Awards

Arts for Youth Award

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.

Arts for Youth Award

Expect is a registered charity that was formed in 1996 by Laura Mullin and Chris Tolley to create cutting edge, multi disciplinary productions and programs that engage urban youth in the arts.

RBC Emerging Artist Award

Kate Cayley is a playwright and director. She is the co-founder and artistic director of feminist theatre company Stranger Theatre, for which she has written or co-written East of the Sun, West of the Moon, The Yellow Wallpaper Project, The Clown of God, The Counterfeit Marquise, LUZ, The World Turned Upside Down, and what Alice found there, and Käthe Kollwitz.

RBC Emerging Artist Award

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.

RBC Emerging Artist Award

Artistic Director of Why Not Theatre, Ravi Jain 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.

Rita Davies and Margo Bindhardt Cultural Leadership Award

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.

Rita Davies and Margo Bindhardt Cultural Leadership Award

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.

Rita Davies and Margo Bindhardt Cultural Leadership Award

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.

Each year, with the help of our sponsors, the Foundation invites some very special guests to the Lunch including representatives from arts organizations celebrating milestone anniversaries and individual artists who have received other achievements and awards during the past year. Here are some of our special guests from the 2009 Mayor's Arts Awards Lunch.