Mission, Vision, Values

47 years of choreographic exploration and presentation

DanceWorks is a community-focused, artist-centered choreographic presentation platform based in Tkaronto, what is colonially known as Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Established in 1977, and led by Founding Dance Curator Mimi Beck until 2023, the organization’s artistic vision is now stewarded by Co-Executive Artistic Producers, Dedra McDermott and David Norsworthy.

We curate vigorous and intentional choreographic performances that weave skillful physicality with a dedication to artistic practice and research.

We recognize the gift of presence that audiences bring and understand that the practice of witnessing performance takes time and trust to develop. DanceWorks earnestly welcomes the curious, the hesitant, the open-hearted and the subversive to gather—inviting audience members to experience a diversity of thought and expression. Audiences are unique; representative of various generations, identities, diasporic lineages all at the intersections of class, race, beliefs, and a manifold of other ways of existing in this world. We embrace grandmothers, superfans, couples, throuples, dog walkers with purple hair, BLM activists, nervous first-timers, and the odd-ones-out.

We All Fall Down in PAPILLON (choreography by Helen Simard). Supported as a part of Citadel Spring Mix, April 2-14, 2024. Photo by Do Phan Hot.

Organizationally, DanceWorks is led by General Manager, Neetika Sharma, and Co-Executive Artistic Producers, Dedra McDermott and David Norsworthy. Together, we are committed to reciprocity and collaboration.

We prioritize shared power, resources, and labour as a way of deepening our practice of artist advocacy and sustaining a more equitable arts sector.

We are in dialogue with artists who represent the breadth of the wondrously atypical movement practices present on this land and critically engage with the violent and mystifying histories that shaped this nation, now known as Canada. As a community-focused organization that is ardently committed to belonging with Toronto’s dance communities, we work horizontally to respond to our sector’s needs and evolving potential.

Naishi Wang in Deciphers, presented February 2024. Photo by Maya Yoncali.

No Woman’s Land (Jaberi Dance Theatre). Photo by Zahra Saleki. Performers Irma Villafuerte (left) and Nickeshia Garrick (right).

Vision

DanceWorks contributes to the well-being and creative vibrancy of our society by:

cultivating a space for artists and community alike to engage in a thoughtfully nuanced discourse that critically reflects on their contemporary lived experience.
advancing the communities that engage with dance and choreography.

We engage in interdisciplinary partnerships with equity-focused organizations, considering ways for dance and choreographic practice to exist and be resourced within and beyond conventional spaces. We contextualize dance with attention to its history, culture and purpose such that it nourishes our human needs for connection, dialogue, and inspiration; positioning ourselves in the Toronto arts ecology as a vital presentation platform.

We recognize that non-violent conflict is unavoidable and generative in spaces that value honesty. We make mistakes and practice reconciliation and repair with grace.

At DanceWorks, we participate in the co-creation of a world where the work of artists is seen, celebrated, and valued as a necessary part of living well with ourselves and each other.

Mission

DanceWorks is a presenter of choreographic performance—championing stories, explorations, and lived experiences that challenge euro-centricity, heteronormativity and dominant culture to uplift the possibilities of life beyond the norm. We empower artists and audience members to hold difference, exchange knowledge, build community, and form bonds of solidarity.