News Releases - 2006
Choreographer David Earle wins Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts
Ottawa, August 10, 2006 – The Canada Council for the Arts announced today that David Earle, choreographer, founder of Dancetheatre David Earle and co-founder of the Toronto Dance Theatre, is the winner of the 2006 Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts. The $30,000 prize, administered and presented by the Canada Council for the Arts, recognizes the highest level of artistic excellence and distinguished career achievement by Canadian artists who have spent the major part of their career in Canada in dance, theatre or music.
Presented for the first time in 2001, the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts was created as a result of a generous donation of $1.1 million to the Canada Council by Toronto businessman and philanthropist Walter Carsen. The prize is normally awarded annually on a four-year cycle: dance, theatre, dance, music. Mr. Earle is the fifth winner of the prize: the previous winners were composer R. Murray Schafer, principal dancer/producer-director Veronica Tennant, playwright John Murrell, and choreographer/director Brian Macdonald.
David Earle was selected by a peer assessment committee consisting of Martine Époque, choreographer and teacher at UQAM; William Lau, artistic director of the Little Pear Garden Collective; and Judith Marcuse, artistic producer of the Judith Marcuse Projects. In awarding the prize to Mr. Earle, the committee said:
“Over a 40-year career of outstanding achievement, David Earle’s choreography and teaching have consistently celebrated both the expressive potential of the physical body and a humanism that connects body and spirit. At the heart of his art is a profound sensitivity to the human condition. His choreography is distinguished by a deep understanding of contemporary and classical music. As a teacher, he both imparts the rudiments of technique and propels students toward an understanding of the importance of dance in our evolving society. A prime shaper and pioneer of contemporary dance in Canada and internationally, he continues to influence and inspire.”
The prize will be presented to David Earle in the fall 2006. A photo of Mr. Earle can be downloaded from the Canada Council image gallery.
David Earle
David Earle was born in 1939 and raised in Toronto, where he began dance training at the age of five. He acted for eleven years with the Toronto Children’s Players, directed by Dorothy Goulding. His modern dance training began with Yone Kvietys in Toronto and he spent two years on a scholarship at the Martha Graham School in New York. Returning to Toronto in 1968, Mr. Earle co-founded Toronto Dance Theatre with Patricia Beatty and Peter Randazzo. He was appointed sole Artistic Director in 1987, taking the company to its first two triumphant seasons in New York and tours in Europe and Asia.
Mr. Earle created the School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s Professional Training Program in 1979, and has taught at UQAM, École supérieure de danse du Québec, Southern Methodist University in Dallas (Texas), Banff School of the Arts, New York University, and Danse Partout in Quebec City.
In his 40 years as a choreographer, Mr. Earle has created over 130 works including Sacra Conversazione, Baroque Suite, Atlantis, Boat River Moon, Dreamsend and Court of Miracles—a full evening work created in collaboration with James Kudelka.
His independent choreographic works include Orpheus and Eurydice, directed by Bill Glassco for the Guelph Spring Festival; Realm, commissioned by Erik Bruhn for the National Ballet of Canada; Architecture for the Poor, for Ballet British Columbia; and Angels and Victories, for the Polish Dance Theatre, which was presented at the World Music Days Festival in Warsaw and at the 1992 Edinburgh Festival.
Mr. Earle’s work was presented on film and television in Moze Mossanen’s Dance for Modern Times and The Dancemakers. For Rhombus Media, he choreographed La Valse for a film on the life of Maurice Ravel, and Romeos and Juliets, which received the Press Award from France’s Grand Prix International de Vidéo-Danse de Sète and also a Gemini award.
In December 1996, Mr. Earle left the Toronto Dance Theatre to pursue an independent career and launched Dancetheatre David Earle (DtDE), located in Guelph (Ontario). Since launching DtDE, Mr. Earle has choreographed 41 new works - mostly commissions for performances with choirs, orchestras and chamber musicians, notably the Penderecki String Quartet. The company has performed at the Open Ears Festival, La Baie des Chaleurs Festival and at Dancers For Life, Spring Rites, NUMUS Concert Series and with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
Among numerous tributes and honours, Mr. Earle has received the Clifford E. Lee and Dora Mavor Moore Awards (1987), the Jean A. Chalmers Award for Distinction in Choreography (1994), the Order of Canada (1996), and in 2005 was awarded a Doctor of Laws by Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. In March 2006 Dance Collection Danse published David Earle: A Choreographic Biography, written by Michele Green.
General information
The Canada Council for the Arts, in addition to its principal role of promoting and fostering the arts in Canada, administers and awards prizes and fellowships to over 100 artists and scholars annually in the arts, humanities, social sciences, natural and health sciences, and engineering. Among these are the Killam Prizes, the Killam Research Fellowships, the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prizes, the Governor General’s Literary Awards and the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
For more information about these awards, including nomination procedures, contact Janet Riedel Pigott, Acting Director of Endowments and Prizes, at 613-566-4414, or
1-800-263-5588, ext. 5041. You can also contact Danielle Sarault, Acting Endowments and Prizes Officer, at 613-566-4414, or 1-800-263-5588, ext. 4116
- 30 -