For a full list of awards, please visit the Press and Award Archive.

Induction Speech, November 2023 Dance Collection Danse Hall of Fame

I’ve just finished reading Zadie Smith’s latest novel, The Fraud, which yes, does deal in some ways with imposters and with imposter syndrome. But also, with personal and professional histories interwoven with the character’s political and cultural lives. In particular, the story follows one female character who is struggling with her drastically shifting interpretation of past events and attitudes. Toward the end of the novel, this character – whose magnificent name is Eliza Touchet – has returned to a location where crucial events in her past took place and is observed to be thinking: “Getting old turned out to be a very strange business. She was learning so many new things about time. It could twist and bend until the past met the present, and vice versa. She was both here and there, then and now, it was invigorating, but also confusing.”

Mrs. Touchet’s thoughts spoke directly to me. I heard the voice of my teacher Irene Dowd, who loves to use the word business in observing a situation, such as “a tricky business” or “a terrible business”, so her voice echoed in “Getting old turned out to be a very strange business”. And I made a dance based on the very idea of time twisting and bending, titled Phase Space. And, further, this marvellous place, the Palais Royale, was once home to The Dancers Ball, an annual fundraising bash for the Toronto dance community in the 1970s. So yes, “both here and there. Then and now”.

In Zadie Smith’s novel, Mrs. Touchet is surrounded by literary luminaries who were real and actual – William Thackery, Charles Dickens – and she’s reading a new novel by a woman using the pen name George Eliot. I’m not sure that I can tie all these threads together except to say that – grateful and awestruck – I have been inside the story of dance for more than 50 years; that the story reads very differently from this vantage point in time; and that my life, inside of that larger story, has been extraordinarily rich and eventful, and intricately woven with the lives of others, including luminaries, visionaries, geniuses and iconoclasts.  

I am still in the midst of my own story. And I’m startled to be here today, knowing that time has pulled me to the periphery, just as it threw me into the middle of it all half a century ago.

The honour of being named to the Dance Hall of Fame comes to me through the artistry and devotion of the teachers, creators, and performers who have nurtured my practice, and the colleagues and loved ones who have anchored my life. I thank them all. I thank everyone here.

Acceptance Speech, June 2019 TAPA Silver Ticket Award at the Dora Mavor Moore Awards ceremony

Thank you, David (eminent actor David Fox, who presented this award). Thank you to the Silver Ticket selection committee, all of them past recipients. Christopher House, I feel your hand in this, and Astrid Janson, you costumed me in 1973 for Toronto Dance Theatre and all these years later we are still here.

I am deeply honoured to receive this magnificent award, but it is very hard to know that so much of my career is behind me, because I have loved being a dancer: listening and learning through my body, giving and taking weight, force, and momentum. Leaning into music, and into ideas – the physical exertion, the creativity, the collaboration, the deep friendships, the terror and transcendence in the studio and in the theatre.

I now consider myself to be the ruin of a dancer, but the instinct and wisdom that dancing honed in me is a vast resource for a very different kind of dance life – a more purely creative life shared with my students and the superb dancers with whom I am privileged work.

From within the matrix of circumstances, relationships, and influences that allowed me a life in dance names emerge that must be spoken tonight: Rean and Murray Smith, Patricia Beatty, Michael J. Baker, Patricia Miner, James Kudelka, Lar Lubovitch, Doug Varone, Charlie Moulton, Mark Morris, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Irene Dowd, Ahmed Hassan, Susan Macpherson, Paul-André Fortier, Andrew Burashko, Marc Parent, Mavis Staines, Bob Sirman, Meredith Potter, Penny Fleming, Darrell Ogilvie-Harris, Sarah Chase, Christine Wright, Martha Burns, Sahara Morimoto, Kate Holden, Andrea Nann, Larry Hahn.

I am profoundly grateful to the extraordinary dancers who have given up so much else to work with me over the past three years: Kate, David, Sarah, Sahara, Mairi, Jarrett, Ben, and Nicole, I am in awe of your artistry.

And to everyone who is part of the Toronto dance scene, I love our wild and wooly corner of the dance world. I thank you for your work; it shakes me and moves me. I share the significance of a dancer receiving this award with all of you. - Peggy Baker

Acceptance Speech, May 2015 TAPA George Luscombe Mentorship Award

Greetings to all of you performance world folk who are up and out and gathered in a theatre lobby first thing Monday morning.   I am so sorry not to be with you – truly, as I am currently waiting in pre-op for a knee surgery – but I will share a few words through the grace of my friend and colleague, Nova Bhattacharya.

The dance milieu is a highly complex and unstable world. Within it, each artist must establish and constantly expand and deepen their expertise in a multitude of roles.  In class, in rehearsal, in performance; under the gaze of teachers, directors, critics and the public; in meetings with administrators, managers, board members, presenters and grant officers dancers do battle with their vulnerabilities and fears in order to pursue their physical and creative practice, and to accomplish and share their art.  At almost any point in the arc of a career, any one of us of could flounder, become overwhelmed, lose our bearings or our confidence, or realize we lack the tools for growth.  If we are persistent enough, or desperate enough, we will turn to someone for a crucial exchange that lasts a few hours, a few weeks or months, or is sustained over many years.  I am forever grateful to Patricia Beatty, Lar Lubovitch, Doug Varone, James Kudelka, Irene Dowd, and Christine Wright for their extraordinary mentorship, and for the immeasurable impact each of them has had on my work. Their generosity and honesty set the standard for my own interactions with those who have likewise sought me out.  I am deeply moved by the courage of each artist who has entrusted me with entry into the highly personal sphere of their creative life.  I thank each of them for the significance of our exchange. I know that by addressing our deepest concerns together we have strengthened our community and contributed to the vitality of our art form. I am honoured to accept the George Luscombe Award for mentorship in recognition of the value of our work together.  Kudos to TAPA for establishing and sustaining this important award.

Remarks by Peggy Baker delivered at Rideau Hall on the occasion of the 2009 Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards, May 8th, 2009

I am a dancer. I’ve been dancing since I curled and twisted and thrust my limbs, floating in my mother’s womb. As a child I danced in the living room, down city sidewalks, in classes that met once a week, in community recitals and amateur musicals. I discovered modern dance at theatre school and, thunder struck, I put aside everything else to pursue it.  

I am gripped by the kinetic excitement and dramatic power of dance; the architecture of choreography, the intimacy of dancing with others; the formality of the theatre, the transformative impact of light and sound, the ritual of performance, the immediacy of an audience. I deplore gender stereotyping and I am fascinated by androgyny. I seek to penetrate the polished surface of dance technique to reveal an authentic expression of humanity. I consider dance to be a spiritual practice, and the commitment, patience, and empathy that have deepened through my work guide me in my personal and civic life.

Nothing in my dance life has been accomplished alone, outside the context of community. I am a product of circumstance and opportunity, lucky to be a citizen of a peaceful and prosperous nation, and free to explore beyond its borders. I live in the debt of many extraordinary individuals - family, loved ones, teachers, colleagues, and artists from every discipline - who have shaped my sensibility and facilitated my work.

I practice a fragile, living art and I will not relinquish the responsibility I share for its continuity and vitality.

Peggy Baker remarks accepting The Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, February 26, 2007

Thank you so very much. Merci. I am humbled to find myself in the esteemed company of so many inspired and accomplished artists. I am honoured to be a part of this community, in which we share the privilege of being artists, and I am overwhelmed by this recognition.

The Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts acknowledges the vast breadth of expression and activity, and the superlative achievements of artists of every kind who make their home in Ontario. I consider the existence of this award to be, itself, a daring act of creation. Because, as we know, the value of art, and the place of the artist in our society, has been systematically discredited and relegated to the fringes by all levels of government in Canada for more than a decade. That, despite everything we know about the economic potency of the cultural sector, the societal imperative that drives us as communities of people to establish a culture, and the spiritual necessity for making and experiencing art. So my thanks to Premier McGuinty, to Deputy Premier Smitherman, and to Minister Di Cocco for your boldness in establishing a prize that celebrates the arts as an essential and integral aspect of our society.

I confess to feeling a bit like an individual ant that has been singled out for its efforts in constructing the colony’s cathedral, created over generations. I have accomplished nothing in my dance life alone, or outside the context of community. I am a product of circumstance and opportunity, lucky to be a citizen of a peaceful and prosperous nation, and free to explore beyond its borders. I live in the debt of the many extraordinary individuals - family, loved ones, teachers and colleagues - who have shaped my sensibility and facilitated my work. Tonight I thank, most especially, Susan Macpherson, who blazed a trail for me and continues to light my path, Meredith Potter, oh high and supreme perfect manager, as well as Nova Bhattacharya, Penny Fleming, Darrell Ogilvy-Harris, my parents Rean and Murray Smith, Larry Hahn, Ahmed Hassan, and Mavis Staines and the National Ballet School, a real 21st century ballet school with a modern dancer as artist-in-residence.

I am a dancer. My art form insists that I remain a student, caught up in an endless struggle to face and overcome my limitations. It insists that I teach, in order to pass on the wisdom of my mentors and the knowledge of my own discoveries. And dance demands that I practice my art in real time, exposed to scrutiny and judgment in the public sphere, but with the exalted possibility of sharing a transformational experience with the audience who witness and, by their presence, complete the work.  I practice a fragile, living art and I will not relinquish the responsibility that I share with my colleagues for its continuity and vitality.

There is a huge amount of goodwill within the arts community and among artists of all generations, however, the unbelievably stiff competition for financial support and production opportunities has undermined the integrity of our cultural sector. Big stable, institutions require the lion’s share of funding, which is often not enough for them to excel, but it is granted at the expense of other important activity. In many cases the most senior artists have been cut off to make way for the strong mid career artists they mentored, and lining up in throngs to endlessly wait their turn are the new and emerging artists. An arts community needs to respect and nurture diverse approaches spanning every generation to be vibrant and sustainable. Culture creates and sustains itself generation after generation as a means to inspire, provoke, and evolve with the society that is at its heart.

One of the most outstanding aspects of The Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts is that the recipient is invited to share both the honour and the prize with another, younger artist working in the same field. It my great pleasure to announce that the emerging artist I have chosen to share this tremendous award is the extraordinary dancer, producer, choreographer, teacher, and advocate Yvonne Ng. Born and raised in Singapore, Yvonne came to Canada in 1983 and is an Honours graduate of York University. She is one of the most active, innovative and outstanding dance artists our community has ever known. She is a choreographer who is the artistic director of her own company, tiger princess dance projects, and of Series 8:08, an opportunity for choreographers to present works-in-progress. She is a curator and presenter through her development of the series Dance: made in canada / fait au canada. She has served on the boards of the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists and the Dance Umbrella of Ontario. And she is above all a unique and utterly superb dancer.

Glenn Sumi wrote in NOW Magazine: “She may be only 4-foot-10, but in the local dance world Dora Award winning Yvonne Ng is a giant. One of the city’s most expressive and intense dancers … she’s also an exciting, instinctive choreographer … And wearing her impresario/producer hat, she can get you worked up about contemporary dance like no one else. Size does not matter; talent and commitment do.”

Yvonne is currently in Singapore, working on a new project, so she is not able to be here tonight, but she has asked me to share a brief acceptance speech on her behalf:

“I am deeply honoured, and this award is very meaningful to me. I would like to recognize the continuous care and love of my friends, family and my artistic colleagues – James, several Peters, Kathies, and Susans, as well as Pui Ming and Stephen. Thank you to the ministry for this recognition and support for the arts and in turn for the rich evolving culture of Canada and to the OAC for administering this award, your contribution is appreciated.”

I join Yvonne in thanking the many people who have joined us tonight to celebrate the art and artists of Ontario.