Dance Collection Danse - Artifact of the Month

A cinema slide from the 1930s demonstrates early modes of advertising performances. The plate features Halifax dancer Marial Mosher and promotes an upcoming performance at the Capitol Theatre where Mosher performed regularly as a member of the Hylda Davies Dancers. “Madame Hylda” held a contract with the Capitol Theatre, and its predecessor The Majestic, to perform short concerts known as prologues. Prologues were a common live act presented before the feature film in theatres in the 1920s and 1930s during the transition in popular entertainment from vaudeville to movies. These live performances became much less frequent by the mid-1930s as the Great Depression forced theatre managers to cut costs.

Robert Bruce's Dionysos Backdrop Design from the Gweneth Lloyd Collection

This month we present an extended edition of Artifact of the Month to pay homage to Dance Collection Danse co-founder Lawrence Adams. February 26, 2013 marks ten years since we lost Lawrence to cancer. He was an essential catalyst in the organization’s birth and development and his values and dedication are traits that continue to be integral to our work at DCD. Learn more about this artifact and the life of an iconoclastic-turned-iconic individual in the Canadian dance world.

Dedicated to the development of dance in Toronto, Amy Sternberg began her career in 1894, alongside her sister Sarah, teaching physical culture and ballroom dances. She went on to stage elaborate productions on a grand scale and to train the next generation of dance teachers in Toronto. Find out how this figure played a role in her story.

Former National Ballet of Canada principal dancer Lois Smith was born in Burnaby, British Columbia, on October 8, 1929. At the age of eleven months, Smith was entered into a contest sponsored by the Fraser Valley Milk Producers' Association. Her mother described her as a “roly poly” baby. Along with seventy-four other baby contestants under a year old, Smith was examined by doctors. In her memoir, she writes, “Most of the babies were crying - all were naked; I evidently did not cry.”

When Canadian Olympians marched in the opening ceremonies of the 1936 games in Berlin, Germany, there was a group of dancers among their ranks - members of Boris Volkoff's ballet company from Toronto. Catherine "Bunny" Lang was one of them and the jacket she wore is part of DCD's archive.