Dance Community: Training, Education and Performance
Excerpted from earthdancers: Dance, Community and Environment Masters of Arts thesis by Julie-Anne Huggins York University, April 2005
FOR EDUCTIONAL USE ONLY
1
st
Generation
First Generation When José Torres of the Ballet de Paris performed in Sudbury in 1950, a professional dance show was about as rare as a meteorite collision.14 Up until the early 1930s, local stages were as barren as the landscape, and aside from the ethnic folk dances of the growing cultural communities (English, Irish, French, Italian, German, Finnish, Polish, Ukrainian, etc.), there was little to no development of formalized dance training or performance. The social atmosphere was still struggling for a sense of class and culture, and with the beginnings of social and classical dance training, the mining community was refining more than their ore. Though circuses and minstrel shows had provided some entertainment and inspiration, so had the desire to sweep a lady off her feet on the dance floor.
14 Sudbury Star announcing the upcoming
performance of José Torres with the Ballet de Paris, which took place March 23, 1950.
The first record of a Sudbury dance studio stems back to 1931, when Ellen Crouse opened the Crouse Dance Studio and began teaching ballroom, ballet, pointe, tap, and acrobatics.15 Whether from her home in the town of Copper Cliff or a studio space in Sudbury, Crouse’s instruction and that of her successors carried on the Crouse name for nearly thirty years.16 Around 1936, classes in acrobatics, ballroom, ballet, tap, and dramatic art were also offered at The Arthur School of Dancing.17
15 An October ad placement in The Sudbury Star.
Though the Arthur’s school closed around 1945, Helen and Jack Hymander stepped into the spotlight, and by 1949, the Hymander Dance Studio was teaching ballroom, acrobatics, ballet, pointe, baton and tap.18 Out in the nearby town of Coniston, Helen Hayden began instructing classes in tap, folk, baton, square dancing, tumbling, majorette drills, and physical fitness. The Coniston Physical Training program and its later affiliate group in New Sudbury do not appear to continue beyond their tenyear mark however.19 In the wake of these original schools, a heightened interest in dance had developed, creating demand for more qualified and experienced teachers. Cresting the 1950s, a new wave of schools was about to flood the area.
Endnotes 14 “In Sudbury Recital Next Week,” The Sudbury Daily Star 15 March 1950: 6.15 Wallace,
190-214. 15 “Mrs. R. C. Crouse School of Dance,” The Sudbury Star 10 October 1931: 12. 16 Bell Canada: The Regional Municipality of Sudbury and Vicinity Directory (n.p.: n.p., 1932- 1961). Vernon’s City of Sudbury and Town of Copper Cliff Directory, 1936 (Hamilton: Vernon Directories Ltd, 1932-1961). 17 Vernon directory, 1936. 18 Sudbury Bell and Vernon directories, 1945-1949. 19 “Coniston Gym Class Presents Display,” Mine Mill News 30 May 1957: 5.