A modern dance company founded by three dancers with almost no local scene to join
Toronto Dance Theatre
Founded in 1968 by three former Graham technique dancers, Toronto Dance Theatre helped establish contemporary modern dance as a serious art form in a city where it barely existed as an institution before.
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Toronto Dance Theatre was founded in 1968 by three dancers, David Earle, Peter Randazzo and Patricia Beatty, all of whom had trained in the Martha Graham technique of modern dance in New York before returning to Canada, at a time when Toronto had essentially no institutional home for contemporary dance distinct from classical ballet. The company set out to establish modern dance as a serious, ongoing artistic discipline in a city where ballet had a far more established institutional presence.
An enduring company and school
The three founders brought distinct choreographic voices that shaped the company's early identity, and Toronto Dance Theatre developed both a performing company and an affiliated school that trained generations of Canadian contemporary dancers and choreographers. It remains one of the oldest and most established contemporary dance companies in Canada, having spent over five decades building the kind of institutional presence for modern dance in Toronto that barely existed when its three founders started out.
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