English National Ballet
English National Ballet is a classical ballet company founded by Dame Alicia Markova and Sir Anton Dolin and based at Markova House in South Kensington, England. Along with The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Scottish Ballet, it is one of the four major ballet companies in Great Britain. English National Ballet is one of the foremost touring companies in Europe, performing in theatres throughout the UK as well as conducting international tours and performing at special events; the Company employs 67 dancers and a symphony orchestra, there is an associate school, English National Ballet School, independent from the ballet company. The Company performs seasons at the London Coliseum and has been noted for specially staged performances at the Royal Albert Hall. In 2014 English National Ballet became an Associate Company of Sadler's Wells; the Patron of English National Ballet is HRH The Duke of York. English National Ballet was founded in 1950 by the British dance couple, Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin.
Markova and Dolin were leading stars of the Ballets Russes, one of the most influential ballet companies of the 20th century. After the death of its director Serge Diaghilev in 1929, the Company was disbanded and in 1931, one of its dancers, Ninette de Valois, founded the Vic-Wells Ballet Company in London, with Markova and Dolin as Principal dancers, Markova becoming Prima Ballerina in 1933. Markova and Dolin left the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1935 to tour as the Markova-Dolin Company and following the success of their performances, they decided to form their own company with the sole purpose being to tour both nationally and internationally, taking ballet to audiences that had not had the opportunity to see the art form. London Festival Ballet was founded in 1950 with the financial backing of the Polish impresario Julian Braunsweg; the name was inspired by the imminent Festival of Britain, however the Company would be renamed to today's English National Ballet. Dolin was the Company's first Artistic Director and established the Company as a touring group both nationally in the UK and Internationally, touring abroad for the first time in 1951.
Dolin introduced a number of educational programs in the early years, designed to make ballet accessible to new audiences. Dolin remained as Artistic Director until 1962, succeeded by John Gilpin, principal dancer with the Company from 1950 to 1960 and 1962 to 1971; the Company grew in size and status, undertaking extensive national and international tours, presenting a new generation of dancers—all while facing bankruptcy. Braunsweg left in 1965 and Donald Albery took over until 1968, stabilising the budget with safer programming. Former Royal Ballet dancer Beryl Grey directed the Company from 1968 to 1979, raising technical standards and inviting prominent guest stars and choreographers including Leonide Massine and Rudolf Nureyev, who picked ballerina Eva Evdokimova to be his first Princess Aurora in his production of The Sleeping Beauty in 1975. Evdokimova in turn became the prima ballerina of the Company under Grey's leadership and continued to reign under successive directors John Field and Peter Schaufuss.
It was Evdokimova who suggested to change the name to English National Ballet to reflect the Company's role as Britain's only classical ballet company dedicated to touring ballets nationwide at an affordable price for audiences. The name change was implemented in 1989. Ivan Nagy, Derek Deane and Matz Skoog directed the Company before Wayne Eagling, former head of Dutch National Ballet, took over in 2006. In April 2012, following the February sudden announcement of resignation by Eagling, principal dancer for The Royal Ballet Tamara Rojo was announced to become his successor at the end of the 2012 season, in August of that year. Artistic Directors: Sir Anton Dolin, 1950–1962 John Gilpin, 1962–1968 Dame Beryl Grey, 1968–1979 John Field, 1979–1984 Peter Schaufuss, 1984–1990 Ivan Nagy, 1990–1993 Derek Deane, 1993–2001 Matz Skoog, 2001–2006 Wayne Eagling, 2006–2012 Tamara Rojo, 2012– The Company's dancers are listed on the official website with photographs and linked biographies. Osiel Gouneo Brooklyn Mack Michael Coleman Jane Haworth Official website Postings Strictly Gershwin at the Royal Albert Hall YouTube: English Ballet Company: Swan Lake
Ontario
Ontario is one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada and is located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province accounting for 38.3 percent of the country's population, is the second-largest province in total area. Ontario is fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included, it is home to the nation's capital city and the nation's most populous city, Ontario's provincial capital. Ontario is bordered by the province of Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay and James Bay to the north, Quebec to the east and northeast, to the south by the U. S. states of Minnesota, Ohio and New York. All of Ontario's 2,700 km border with the United States follows inland waterways: from the west at Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence River drainage system; these are the Rainy River, the Pigeon River, Lake Superior, the St. Marys River, Lake Huron, the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, the Niagara River, Lake Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River from Kingston, Ontario, to the Quebec boundary just east of Cornwall, Ontario.
There is only about 1 km of land border made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border. Ontario is sometimes conceptually divided into Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario; the great majority of Ontario's population and arable land is in the south. In contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and heavy forestation; the province is named after Lake Ontario, a term thought to be derived from Ontarí:io, a Huron word meaning "great lake", or skanadario, which means "beautiful water" in the Iroquoian languages. Ontario has about 250,000 freshwater lakes; the province consists of three main geographical regions: The thinly populated Canadian Shield in the northwestern and central portions, which comprises over half the land area of Ontario. Although this area does not support agriculture, it is rich in minerals and in part covered by the Central and Midwestern Canadian Shield forests, studded with lakes and rivers. Northern Ontario is subdivided into two sub-regions: Northeastern Ontario.
The unpopulated Hudson Bay Lowlands in the extreme north and northeast swampy and sparsely forested. Southern Ontario, further sub-divided into four regions. Despite the absence of any mountainous terrain in the province, there are large areas of uplands within the Canadian Shield which traverses the province from northwest to southeast and above the Niagara Escarpment which crosses the south; the highest point is Ishpatina Ridge at 693 metres above sea level in Temagami, Northeastern Ontario. In the south, elevations of over 500 m are surpassed near Collingwood, above the Blue Mountains in the Dundalk Highlands and in hilltops near the Madawaska River in Renfrew County; the Carolinian forest zone covers most of the southwestern region of the province. The temperate and fertile Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence Valley in the south is part of the Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests ecoregion where the forest has now been replaced by agriculture and urban development. A well-known geographic feature is part of the Niagara Escarpment.
The Saint Lawrence Seaway allows navigation to and from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Thunder Bay in Northwestern Ontario. Northern Ontario occupies 87 percent of the surface area of the province. Point Pelee is a peninsula of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario, the southernmost extent of Canada's mainland. Pelee Island and Middle Island in Lake Erie extend farther. All are south of 42°N – farther south than the northern border of California; the climate of Ontario varies by location. It is affected by three air sources: cold, arctic air from the north; the effects of these major air masses on temperature and precipitation depend on latitude, proximity to major bodies of water and to a small extent, terrain relief. In general, most of Ontario's climate is classified as humid continental. Ontario has three main climatic regions; the surrounding Great Lakes influence the climatic region of southern Ontario. During the fall and winter months, heat stored from the lakes is released, moderating the climate near the shores of the lakes.
This gives some parts of southern Ontario milder winters than mid-continental areas at lower latitudes. Parts of Southwestern Ontario have a moderate humid continental climate, similar to that of the inland Mid-Atlantic states and the Great Lakes portion of the Midwestern United States; the region has warm to cold winters. Annual precipitation is well distributed throughout the year. Most of this region lies in the lee of the Great Lakes. In December 2010, the snowbelt set a new record when it was h
Canada's National Ballet School
Canada's National Ballet School commonly known as the National Ballet School of Canada, is a classical ballet school located in Toronto, Canada. Along with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, it is a provider of professional ballet training in Canada; the school, housed in four main buildings, is associated with the National Ballet of Canada, many graduates go on to dance in professional ballet companies. Mavis Staines is the current Artistic Director of the school; the National Ballet of Canada was formed in 1951 by the English ballet dancer Celia Franca, a dancer with ballet companies in the United Kingdom. Franca emigrated to Canada in 1951 and founded the National Ballet of Canada that same year hiring the English ballet teacher Betty Oliphant to work with the company; as the National Ballet became established and Oliphant decided to create a ballet academy to train dancers for the company. The school, modeled after Britain's Royal Ballet School, opened in 1959 in a former Quaker meeting house at 111 Maitland Street in Toronto, a building purchased for the school by the National Ballet Guild at a cost of $80,000.
Oliphant became the school's first Artistic Director. The first enrolment of full-time students included 27 females, 202 students enrolled for part-time study, of which nine were boys. Having studied the Cecchetti method under Dame Marie Rambert and Antony Tudor, Oliphant chose the method as the foundation for the School's training programme; the Cecchetti method taught at the school was the original syllabus devised by Enrico Cecchetti in collaboration with the dance writer and historian Cyril Beaumont. Students of the school were assessed by examiners from the United Kingdom; as well as the National Ballet of Canada, the school trained dancers for companies across Canada and around the world. Alumni of the school include Martine van Hamel, Frank Augustyn, Neve Campbell, Anne Ditchburn, Rex Harrington, Karen Kain, James Kudelka, Veronica Tennant, Martine Lamy, John Alleyne, Mavis Staines; the school trained professional dance teachers. In 1983, students at the school were featured in the Academy Award-winning National Film Board of Canada dance film Flamenco at 5:15.
In 2000, 400 Jarvis Street, in the Wellesley-Church district, was acquired from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for one dollar. The existing buildings on the site were redesigned by Goldsmith Borgal & Company Ltd.. Architects. Three new buildings, dubbed Project Grand Jete, were planned and built by GBCA along with Kuwabara Payne Mckenna Blumberg Architects. Construction began in 2003 and in 2005 the school relocated there; the major expansion to the school was completed in 2007 at a cost of $100 million. 111 Maitland, now known as Currie Hall, became the school's dining hall. Each year, the school conducts outreach tours in about twenty cities across Canada. Students have come to The National from every province in Canada, as well as from many other countries including the United States, Japan and Sweden. Students are accepted after an audition on the basis of merit, with financial assistance available depending on family means. Students who pass the initial auditions participate in an intensive summer program, some of these are accepted and asked to train at the school in the fall.
At the end of each academic year, students are evaluated and invited back to continue training the following year if they have shown progress and promise. The school provides a full-time program which combines classical ballet training with academic education from Grades 6 through 12 at its boarding school, as well as specialized dance training after Grade 12 and a full-time teacher-training program. Since 1959, the school has trained hundreds of professional dance teachers; the school's training prepares students to dance with The National Ballet of Canada, but to dance with other major ballet companies in Canada and throughout the world. Alumni of the school can be seen dancing at many companies worldwide, including The Royal Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater, Frankfurt Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, The Royal Danish Ballet, The Royal Swedish Ballet, The San Francisco Ballet, New York City Ballet, The Joffrey Ballet. In addition to the core Professional Ballet/Academic Program, the school offers a post-secondary advanced dance training program, a Teacher Training Program, summer school and adult recreational classes throughout the year, teachers' seminars, teacher and pianist workshops as part of its annual national recruitment tour.
About 700 students and their families take part in the school's programs each week, an additional 150 auditionees joining the student body for the annual summer school. The school trained most of its students in the British version of the Cecchetti method called Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing -- ISTD, which differs from the less-developed version taught by the Cecchetti Council of America. While Cecchetti has been the root of The National's training, most of the year was not developed to preparing for syllabus exams. Instead, The National developed its own system of training and used the ISTD Cecchetti exams at the end of the year to gage and assess its own students by inviting external ISTD examiners from England to examine its students. In the Upper School at The National, students were exposed to the Vaganova method by Russian and other Sov
Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal
The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal or The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal is a commemorative medal created in 2012 to mark the sixtieth anniversary of Elizabeth II's accession to the thrones of the Commonwealth realms. There are three versions of the medal: one issued by the United Kingdom, another by Canada, the third for the Caribbean realms of Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; the ribbons used with the Canadian and British versions of the medal are the same, while the ribbon of the Caribbean medal differs slightly. The different iterations of the medal were presented to tens of thousands of recipients throughout the Commonwealth realms in the jubilee year. Named by Order in Council as the Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Canadian medal was designed by Cathy Bursey-Sabourin, Fraser Herald of the Canadian Heraldic Authority, manufactured by the Royal Canadian Mint, it takes the form of a disc with, on the obverse, a crowned effigy of the Queen circumscribed by the words ELIZABETH II DEI GRATIA REGINA • CANADA.
The reverse features Elizabeth's royal cypher crowned and superimposed upon a diamond shield, behind, a bed of four maple leaves and a ribbon with the dates 1952 and 2012 to the left and right of the shield and VIVAT REGINA below, all on a field of diamonds. In the United Kingdom, the medal, more properly known as The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal, was designed by Timothy Noad, a calligrapher and illuminator, it depicts on the obverse the Ian Rank-Broadley effigy of the Queen crowned with a tiara and is circumscribed by the inscription ELIZABETH II DEI GRATIA REGINA FID DEF. The reverse shows a faceted hexagon with a crowned royal cipher, inscribed with the years 1952 and 2012. Eight Commonwealth realms in the Caribbean—Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines—have each issued a Diamond Jubilee medal; the obverse bears the same effigy of the Queen as does the British medal circumscribed by the words DIAMOND JUBILEE HM QUEEN ELIZABETH II.
The reverse shows the royal cypher of Elizabeth II with CARIBBEAN REALMS above and the years 1952–2012 below. The medal itself is rhodium plated. Both the Canadian and British versions of the medal are worn suspended from a broad red ribbon with blue outer stripes and, at the centre, double white stripes with a red stripe between; the ribbon of the Caribbean medal is similar to the aforementioned, with a black stripe between the middle two white stripes. In the United Kingdom and its overseas territories, 450,000 medals were awarded only to members of HM Armed Forces who had served longer than five years, operational members of HM Prison Service, emergency services personnel who have been in paid service, retained or in a voluntary capacity, who had completed five full calendar years of service on 6 February 2012. Holders of the Victoria Cross and George Cross and members of the Royal Household were eligible; the medals cost the Department for Culture and Sport £8m to produce. The Canadian medal, to "honour significant contributions and achievements by Canadians," is administered by the Chancellery of Honours at Rideau Hall and was awarded to 60,000 citizens and permanent residents of Canada who made a significant contribution to their fellow countrymen, their community, or to Canada over the previous sixty years.
The medal could have been awarded posthumously if the recipient was alive on 6 February 2012. The medals were allocated either automatically to individuals within certain prescribed categories—such as those in the Canadian order of precedence, the Order of Canada, or recipients of the Cross of Valour—or by selection by specific officials, such as the Governor General, the Chief of the Defence Staff, or presidents of various non-governmental organisations; the Governor General was permitted to make "exceptional awards" of the medal. On 30 May 2012, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, presented British jubilee medals to 28 members of the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association, including individuals from the United Kingdom, Australia and Indonesia, as well as representatives from Malta and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which had each been collectively awarded the George Cross between 1942 and 1999, respectively; some orders of precedence are as follows: In keeping with previous jubilees, plans for a commemorative medal were first announced by the Lord President of the Council, Lord Mandelson, in early 2010.
The design and eligibility criteria were subsequently announced by the Secretary of State for Culture, Jeremy Hunt, in the summer of 2011, stating "I hope the official medal will serve as a mark of thanks to all those who give so much in the name of society and public service and I extend my congratulations to all the recipients." The Governor General of Canada, David Johnston, announced on 3 February 2011 that the Queen had approved the creation of the Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and he and Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled the medal's design at Rideau Hall. The first medal was struck by the Governor General on 6 December of the same year. On Accession Day 2012, the first Canadian medals were presented to 60 recipients by the Governor General at a ceremony at Rideau Hall and to others at other locations across the country, it was at the same time announced that each member o
Bolshoi Ballet
The Bolshoi Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russian Federation. Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi is among the world's oldest ballet companies, it only achieved worldwide acclaim, however, in the early 20th century when Moscow became the capital of Soviet Russia. Along with the Mariinsky Ballet in Saint Petersburg, the Bolshoi is recognised as one of the foremost ballet companies in the world; the earliest origins of the Bolshoi Ballet can be found in the creation of a dance school for a Moscow orphanage in 1773. In 1776, dancers from the school were employed by Prince Pyotr Vasilyevich Ouroussoff and the English theatrical entrepreneur Michael Maddox, to form part of their new theatre company. Performing in owned venues, they acquired the Petrovsky Theatre, which, as a result of fires and erratic redevelopment, would be rebuilt as today's Bolshoi Theatre. While some guest dancers come and go from other prestigious ballet companies—like the Mariinsky and American Ballet Theatre—many company dancers are graduates of the academy.
In 1989, Michael Shannon was the first American ballet dancer to graduate from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy and join the Bolshoi Ballet company. Despite staging many famous ballets, it struggled to compete with the reputation of the Imperial Russian Ballet, today's Mariinsky Ballet of St. Petersburg, it was not until the appointment of Alexander Gorsky as Ballet Master in 1900 that the company began to develop its own unique identity, with acclaimed productions of new or restaged ballets including, Don Quixote, Coppélia, Swan Lake, La fille mal gardée, Giselle, Le Corsaire and La Bayadère. The Soviet leadership's preference for uncomplicated moral themes in the arts was demonstrated in Yuri Grigorovich's appointment as director in 1964. Grigorovich held his position until 1995, at which point a series of directors, including Boris Akimov, Alexei Ratmansky, Yuri Burlaka and Sergei Filin, brought more modern dance performance ideas to the company. Anastasia Volochkova has claimed, she said: “It happened with the corps du ballet but with the soloists.
I received such propositions to share the beds of oligarchs." American dancer Joy Womack echoed this concern when she left the company after being told that, to secure solo roles she must either pay $10,000 or "start a relationship with a sponsor."The January 2013 sulfuric acid attack on art director Sergei Filin once again steeped the company in scandal. Bolshoi dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko, was convicted of organizing the attack and sentenced to 6 years in prison. Reasons for the attack include corruption within the company. In July 2017, the Bolshoi Theatre cancelled the premiere of a ballet about gay Soviet dancer Rudolf Nureyev; the Director General claimed. It was the first time a show has been pulled in such a way since the collapse of the Soviet Union, sparking rumours about the motivation behind it. Andrei Anikhanov Yuri Fayer Algis Shuraitis Today the Bolshoi Ballet remains one of the world's foremost ballet companies, in addition to being one of the largest, with 220 dancers; the word "bolshoi" means "big" or "grand" in Russian.
The company operates on a hierarchical system, similar to those used by other leading European ballet companies, with senior dancers ranked as principals, descending in order of importance through lead soloist, first soloist and corps de ballet. Due to its size, the company operates two troupes of corps de ballet. In 2000, the Bolshoi Ballet opened its first Ballet Academy in Joinville, Brazil; the performance style of the Bolshoi Ballet is identified as being colourful and bold, combining technique and athleticism with expressiveness and dramatic intensity. This style is attributed to Alexander Forsky. There has been a fierce rivalry with the St. Petersburg Heritage Ballet Company, the Mariinsky. Both have developed different performing styles: the Bolshoi has a more colourful and bold approach, whereas the Mariinsky is associated with more pure and refined classicism. Female Male It was announced 30 January 2013, that Svetlana Lunkina told the Russian newspaper Izvestia that she wants to remain in Canada, because she fears for her safety if she returned to Russia.
Female Anastasia Goryacheva Kristina Kretova Maria VinogradovaMale Artemy Belyakov Denis Savin Female Daria Khokhlova Anastasia Meskova Maria Pogosyan Anna TikhomirovaMale Yuri Baranov Vitaly Biktimirov Andrei Bolotin Jacopo Tissi Alexander Vodopetov Female Male The Bolshoi Ballet operates two troupes of corps de ballet, with 169 dancers in total. Official website Official website
Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres
The Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres are a pair of stacked theatres in Toronto, Canada. The Winter Garden Theatre is seven storeys above the Elgin Theatre, they are the last surviving Edwardian stacked theatres in the world. The pair of theatres were built as the flagship of Marcus Loew's theatre chain in 1913; the building was designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb, who designed the Ed Mirvish Theatre nearby. Both theatres were built to show the short silent movies of the time; each theatre was intended for a different class of patron. The gold-and-marble, domed,'hard-top' lower theatre was home to continuous vaudeville and movies; the upper-level Winter Garden is an'atmospheric' country garden under the stars, painted with murals of plants and garden trellises, with tree trunk columns and lantern lights. The upper theatre was built for the'Big Time' vaudeville market and had reserved seats at premium prices, catering to affluent patrons; as well as competing in a different market, the upper theatre could be used for experimentation with acts, without the risk of closing the lower theatre.
By 1928, feature-length silent films were popular. In 1928, the lower theatre was converted to show sound films and the upper theatre was closed; the Winter Garden remained shuttered for about sixty years. Left inside it was a large collection of vaudeville flats and scenery, now the world's largest surviving collection. In 1969, Loews sold the Elgin to Famous Players. By the 1970s, the Elgin was showing B movies and soft-core pornography. In 1981, the Ontario Heritage Foundation bought the structure from Famous Players. From March 1985 through March 1987 the musical Cats was successfully presented in the unrestored Elgin, showing the viability of the theatre; the building closed in 1987 for a full restoration and reopened in 1989. In 1991, Dr. David Griesinger and Steve Barbar of Lexicon, Inc. at the request of acousticians Neil Muncy and Robert Tanner, installed the first production LARES system, an electroacoustic enhancement system that augments architectural acoustics, in the Elgin Theatre.
This initial LARES system used two microphones placed at the balcony's front edge to pick up sound from the stage. The microphone signals were digitized and processed in two mainframe computers, the resulting signals were sent to 56 loudspeakers in the main ceiling and 60 under the balcony, for the purpose of providing additional intelligibility and ambience; the Elgin Theatre housed the world premiere of the Napoleon musical in 1994, which transferred to London's West End in 2000. In 1995, it was home to The, it Since 1996, Ross Petty Productions has staged pantomimes at the Elgin Theatre each Christmas season. From February 10 to 14, 2004, Conan O'Brien taped four episodes of NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien from the Elgin Theatre; the visit came about via the Toronto City Council's CDN$1 million payment to NBC to have the American television program visit Toronto for a week worth of shows, part of the overall council-funded PR effort of promoting Toronto as a tourist destination for Americans in the wake of the publicized summer 2003 Severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic which adversely impacted the city's tourism industry.
The Elgin Theatre serves as one of the hosts to the annual Toronto International Film Festival. The location is featured in the 2017 movie The Shape of Water and receives an acknowledgement in the closing credits; the music video for "Changes" by the Montreal band Stars is set there. The Winter Garden is seen in the 1994 film Camilla; the cover photos for Rush's 1981 live album Exit... Stage Left were shot at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium; the Elgin Theatre played host to the taping of Bryan Adams in Concert for the American broadcast of Great Performances on PBS. The show was filmed in July 2014 and first aired on March 1, 2015. Ed Mirvish Theatre, Toronto Uptown Theatre, Toronto Capitol Cinema, Ottawa The Sanderson Centre for the Performing Arts, Brantford Opera Atelier Ontario Heritage Trust: The Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre Toronto's Historical Plaques - Loew's Yonge Street and Winter Garden Theatres Toronto's Historical Plaques -Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres Heritage Property Detail for 189 Yonge Street
Canada's Walk of Fame
Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto, Canada, is a walk of fame that acknowledges the achievements and accomplishments of Canadians who have excelled in their respective fields. It is a series of maple leaf-like stars embedded in 13 designated blocks' worth of sidewalks in Toronto in front of Roy Thomson Hall, The Princess of Wales Theatre, The Royal Alexandra Theatre on King Street as well as Simcoe Street; the first group of members was inducted in 1998, to date 173 Canadians have been inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. These Inductees include activists; the Walk of Fame was first conceived in 1996 when co-founder Peter Soumalias, suggested the idea of a Walk of Fame for famous Torontonians to the board of the Toronto Entertainment District Association. They rejected his idea, but he went on to establish a Walk of Fame for Canadians in partnership with Bill Ballard, Dusty Cohl and Gary Slaight. In spite of a lack of funds, research and no media plan, the first class of inductees was inducted in 1998.
Canada's Walk of Fame has become a popular tourist attraction in Toronto, has been named the number one Canadian recognition event. Canada's Walk of Fame accepts nominations for inductees in five categories: Arts & Entertainment Business & Entrepreneurship Philanthropy & Humanities Science & Technology Sports & Athletics Nominations for potential inductees are accepted from the public year-round, culminating with their National Nomination Promotion during the month of April. In 2000, prior to the introduction of the online voting system, over 30,000 nominations were received via letters, fax and e-mail. Now submissions are accepted on the official Canada's Walk of Fame website and thousands of nominations are received every year, which are sent to selection committee for consideration; the committee analyzes the nominees based on the following criteria: the nominee was born in Canada or has spent their formative or creative years in Canada. Following the Selection Committee's evaluation, the nominees that meet all of the requirements are forwarded to the board of directors, who select the inductees.
The process differs from that of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Hollywood version allows only celebrities of the silver screen, radio, live theatre and singers/musicians, while Canada's Walk allows people of more diverse occupations, as listed above. While most celebrities on the Hollywood Walk of Fame are American or have achieved their fame in the United States, Canada's Walk of Fame is exclusive to Canadians. For someone to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, they must be nominated by a sponsor who must agree to field the $25,000 cost of installing a star. From there, the names are submitted to a nominating committee of five people, who pick 10–15 names to award stars to annually; the only criteria for it are: "professional achievement, longevity of five years or more, contributions to the community and the guarantee that the celebrity will attend the dedication ceremony if selected."Canadian stars are inducted in an annual group ceremony. Celebrities can have more than one star on the Hollywood Walk, the same celebrity can receive as many as five stars under the various categories.
This does not happen with Canada's Walk of Fame, although some may have an individual star but are included as part of a larger group, such as John Candy, Martin Short, Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara who have their own star but were in Second City Television. New inductees are inducted annually at an unveiling ceremony where their star, a stylized maple leaf, is revealed; the first was held in 1998 and only four of the twelve living inductees attended: Karen Kain, Norman Jewison, Barbara Ann Scott and Rich Little. The 2007 ceremony was held at Toronto's Hummingbird Centre, was attended by all seven inductees and was hosted by Eugene Levy. Past hosts include Tom Green, Jann Arden, Kurt Browning and Catriona Le May Doan; the ceremony was broadcast by CTV until 2008. Beginning in 2009 the ceremony was broadcast by Global; the first ceremony on the network was hosted by Anne Murray while Howie Mandel hosted for the following two years. Paul Shaffer hosted the event in 2012. Established in 2008, the Cineplex Legends Award is posthumously awarded to "Canadian pioneers in film, sport and innovation."
Sponsored by Cineplex Entertainment, the first recipients of the award were siblings Norma and Douglas Shearer. The award recipients are given stars on the Walk of Fame. First awarded in 2010, the Allan Slaight Honour, named after the leading figure in the Canadian radio industry, is awarded to a young Canadian for "making a positive impact in the fields of music." Recipients receive an honorarium of $10,000 from the Slaight Foundation, but are not considered inductees of the Walk of Fame. So far, recipients of the Slaight award have been Nikki Yanofsky, Melanie Fiona, Carly Rae Jepsen, the Weeknd, Shawn Mendes, Brett Kissel, Shawn Hook and Jessie Reyez. In recent years, Canada's Walk of Fame undertaken several new programs; the Canada's Walk of Fame Festival was established in 2010. The festival spans 3 days. Since its inaugural year, the festival has included musical performances from Canadian artists such as Sarah McLachlan, Serena Ryder, Crysta
