Moving Forward

DanceWorks’ Artistic Leadership Transition

Building on Founding Dance Curator Mimi Beck’s impressive legacy, we’re excited to be entering a new chapter with the inspired artistic leadership of Dedra McDermott and David Norsworthy joining forces with the DanceWorks team and General Manager Neetika Sharma.

Dedra McDermott (L), Mimi Beck (C), David Norsworthy (R). Photo by Kendra Epik.

Mimi Beck addressing the attendees of her retirement party. Photo by Kendra Epik.

David and Dedra joined DanceWorks as the new Co-Executive Artistic Producers on August 1, 2023. You can read their biographies on our Team & Contact page.

We celebrated Mimi Beck’s retirement on November 16, 2023. You can view photos of the celebration and read more about Mimi’s legacy with our organization on our Celebrating Mimi Beck page.

Throughout late summer and autumn 2023, we engaged in numerous conversations with artists and partners to inform our next chapter. To support our transition, we assembled an Artistic Advisory Committee including Mimi Beck, Ravyn Wngz and Devyani Saltzman. You can read their biographies on our Team & Contact page. Additionally, we organized an informal community conversation event called the Mallo Meet-Up on December 10, 2023 in partnership with Mallo Coffee & Bar.

In January 2024 we released our updated Mission, Vision and Values, our new Curatorial Statement, and our Artistic Introductions + Ideas Form on this new website.

In alignment with our commitment to dialogue and transparency, we hosted a series of Information Session + Community Consultation events. The first event took place on February 24, 2024 on Zoom. You can view the recording and time codes for the start/end of each section by scrolling down. Our second Information Session + Community Consultation event took place in-person in Toronto on April 2, 2024.

DanceWorks staff and community consultation participants engaged in conversations at our Information Session + Community Consultation event. Photos by Ysabel Garcia.

Information Session + Community Consultation

Zoom Recording of our Online Event (Saturday, February 24)

You can view the full recording our our online session below, including ASL interpretation. You can enable automatically generated closed captioning by using the CC icon on the Vimeo player. If you’re looking for specific information, you can use the following time codes to skip to the relevant section:

  • Introductions of DanceWorks’ staff: 00:00 - 6:16

    Online meeting housekeeping and meeting outline: 6:16 - 10:00

    Self-introductions of meeting attendees: 10:00 - 21:00

    Land acknowledgement: 21:00 - 23:46

    Updated Mission, Vision, and Values: 23:46 - 33:34

    New Curatorial Statement: 33:34 - 42:33

    Artistic Introductions + Ideas Form: 42:33 - 57:56

    Call for Board Members: 57:57 - 1:00:00

    Questions, with answers from DanceWorks staff: 1:00:00 - 1:19:26

    Wrap up and thank you: 1:19:26 - 1:23:29

Thank you to everyone who attended this event on February 24!

All participants were notified of this recording and it’s public use at the beginning of the meeting and on the RSVP form. If you have any questions or concerns please email david[at]danceworks.ca.