Think back to a time when you had your third place. Not in a line or in a competition, but your third place in life—away from home, after school and work. In the case of Baby Boomers, for example, the de facto third place in their (and their children’s lives) used to be the neighbourhood church, mosque, or synagogue. But, with time, Sunday morning sermons have been slowly replaced with matinee shows at the theatre, or a pottery class for Saturday afternoons, or perhaps a Wednesday dance class as a way to use-up the children’s remaining after-school energy. Now, it seems it’s my generation’s turn to look back at these artistic outlets as the good ol’ days. As an artist myself, I can speak from personal experience to the fledgling significance of art—from the local to the national—in our conception of social alternatives to going to work or staying at home. Toronto’s arts ecosystem, in particular, has been losing these artistic third places at warp speed over the past decade─a deflationary process that was exacerbated by the pandemic. While there’s a long list of largely economic factors driving this deflation, there’s one feature of this ecosystem that often goes unexamined: the lack of intersectionality within the arts. 

Most of our artistic institutions and organisations are hyper-fixated on the genre-defined community they’ve cobbled together across various subscription campaigns. Often, the boundaries of these communities were loosely defined in stuffy boardrooms and by inaugural board members who themselves lived in their own social bubbles. This opera company sets its sight on the opera-going crowd and nothing else, that theatre troupe will spend its entire marketing budget on enticing the small local herd of thespians, and that gallery is hell bent on squeezing its revenue out of the six or so subscribers who live and die by mid-century abstract art of the Nordic variety. Do our arts institutions still care about attracting the generalised arts-going public? Let alone the general public? We cannibalise this arts-going public into bite-sized mailing lists and wonder why our halls, galleries, (and stomachs) sit half empty. 

Toronto Dance Theatre (TDT), a contemporary dance ensemble that’s been in existence for over 50 years, presents an interesting case study of an arts organisation that was designed for intersectional public participation at its inception. Yet I myself—an artist and performer with some dance experience—had never heard of the TDT until Cannopy Magazine approached me to write this piece. Before investigating what makes TDT unique, and why it has thrived for this long, I wanted to first recognize why it’s so hard to find out about the arts organisations doing good work in our local community. Having been a part of Toronto’s independent theatre scene for several years now, I’ve been thinking lately of how it is that long-standing hubs like TDT can go unnoticed by artists and members of the general public alike. I have a few theories. 

For one, the global access that is procured by our phones trumps the appeal of what’s often right in front of us. In short, we’ve lost the taste for local arts and entertainment. Speaking from personal experience, it’s extremely easy to be allured by the global success we see others achieve online, while not even thinking about the opportunities to embark on our own artistic journeys locally. While I initially set out to write a sprawling piece on the ambitious roster of productions the TDT is staging throughout an impressive 2024/25 season, I quickly realised that the more urgent matter is to first bring our collective attention back to the local. Despite TDT’s longevity, and the growth it has achieved internationally via a succession of celebrated artistic directors, a permanent ensemble of dancers, and a storied repertoire─it’s safe to say that the approach of its 60th anniversary in four years comes as a surprise to even casual members of Toronto’s arts consuming public. This lack of awareness is a shortcoming that does not reflect the company’s otherwise earnest efforts to connect with the general public, but of the culture of the arts ecosystem we live in. One where it seems the rising tide rarely lifts all boats, because each artistic community is an island all to itself.  

Under the leadership of Andrew Tay—the TDT’s latest Artistic Director—the company recommitted itself to fostering better intersections with the general arts going public in order to maintain the third place it’s been cultivating since 1968. Tay, an acclaimed choreographer, has described himself as “a facilitator of encounters and artistic experiences.” His vision—to usher in new artists in cross-genre collaborations and developing productions that are specifically reflective of the Toronto scene—is exactly the kind of intersectionality within the arts that will save what’s left of our third places. Likewise, Tay’s vision proposes an analytical, probing approach to TDT’s historical mission; which has been to foster a hub of collaborative creation and bridge the gap between performers and audience members. Offering artist residencies, courses, and studio spaces for external artistic projects, TDT is redefining what it means for an artistic hub to create with and for the local community. 

Coalescing Towards, the opening production of TDT’s 2024/25 season, was exemplary of the intersectional thinking that I’m advocating for here. If the people can’t come to you—perhaps because they don’t know you exist—then it’s imperative that you go to the people. That’s exactly what TDT has managed through this partnership with Nuit Blanche and Italian choreographer Michele Rizzo. With Coalescing Towards, Rizzo staged a reflection on the pedestrian experience, “investigating the concepts of repetition and unison, exploring the capacity for movement to forge togetherness.” Playing out as a 12-hour durational performance set at a loading dock on Toronto’s waterfront, Coalescing was a masterclass of practising what you’re preaching. Gone are the velvet curtains and safe harbours of TDT’s homebase at The Winchester Street Theatre in Cabbagetown, this production was an act of trusting the public by thrusting the dancers into a very public space. For the hundreds of onlookers who were able to bear temporary witness to this dusk-till-dawn performance, TDT was not merely an esoteric dance company primarily available to those already within the contemporary dance scene. It was a place of gathering, a durational third place where pedestrians of the world’s most diverse city could escape their silos and share a common artistic experience. 

Any piece on the changes we’d like to see in the arts would be incomplete without mention of better (read: more) funding of the arts across the three levels of government. That is certainly true here─the economic factors that contribute to the shrinking of our public third places will need the counterbalance of urgent public funding. However, no amount of funding can bring us together if our arts organisations are not genuine in their commitment to engaging the general public. If we can move beyond the silos, to recultivate an arts going public, then I  believe that we have the power to create space for third places again. 

Discover Toronto Dance Theatre www.tdt.org