Principal Dancer EVAN McKIE is leaving the Stuttgart Ballet after 13 years, and returning to his hometown and the National Ballet of Canada. Born in TORONTO and educated at Canada’s National Ballet School, he has received critical acclaim for many roles including Hamlet, Onegin, Siegfried in Swan Lake, the Prince in The Sleeping Beauty and Albrecht in Giselle. He has appeared with Moscow’s Bolshoi, the Paris Opera Ballet, and companies in South America and Japan. With the renowned Stuttgart Ballet, he performed in many commissioned new works.
Artistic Director, National Ballet of Canada, KAREN KAIN: “Evan is a very intelligent dancer and has the spirit of a true artist. He loves the contemporary and the process of creation but also absolutely embodies the danseur noble.” EVAN McKIE; “The National Ballet has a rich history and its own strong identity. It has a bright future. I’m excited that I’ll be a part of it.” <PHOTOS – Aleksandar Antonijevic and Patricio Melo>
HAMILTON (known in some circles as The Hammer) is Canada’s steeltown – a city of factories and smoke-laden skylines – roughly 40 miles (65 kilometres) southwest of TORONTO. With a population of about 500,000, Greater Hamilton boasts one of the country’s top universities, a growing arts community, one daily newspaper, a major medical centre, a botanic garden, television station and fine art gallery. <PHOTO ABOVE – Hamilton from Devil’s Punch Bowl/2009>
JOSEPH HARTMAN, a Hamilton resident, has spent 7 years photographing his city’s East End, a cross-section of working class neighbourhoods and the surrounding landscape. With globalization, times are tough these days – marked by desolate downtown streets and the increase of low end stores. The citizenry waits for a rebirth as heavy industry slowly, but surely, leaves town. <PHOTO ABOVE – Joseph Hartman by Scott Gardner, Hamilton Spectator>
“Hamilton isn’t a perfect sort of idyllic kind of place, but there is a beauty which I think is quite unique. There’s a lot of resilience in Hamilton. There’s this sort of gritty personality and I mean that in a good way,” Hartman says. “I love that Hamilton’s not trying to pretend to be something else. Hamilton’s happy with what it is.”
<PHOTOS ABOVE – Gage Park/2008; Feast/2010; Canada Street/2010; Hughson Street/2011; Hamilton From Above Sherman Avenue/2011>
Regent Park is also seeing progress in the form of re-envisioned public spaces. The Central Park playground will open soon, while work continues on the west side lawn, a water play area, greenhouse, community gardens, a dogs-off-leash area, lighting and public art.
Over the past ten years there’ve been many new arrivals at TORONTO ZOO, located on the doorstep of Canada’s newest and largest urban national park (Rouge National Urban Park). Among them – first birth of Sumatran tiger cubs in Canada; first hatchings of Komodo Dragons in Canada; two endangered Amur (Siberian) tiger cubs born; two rare snow leopard cubs born; Hudson the polar bear born; Mstari – the 17th Masai Giraffe born at the Toronto Zoo; Ngozi, a Western lowland gorilla gave birth to a healthy female baby in January; and Luke, a zebra foal arrived last November.
TORONTO ZOO’s Gabriela Mastromonaco is the only full-time reproductive physiologist in a Canadian zoo. She works with two permanent staff and a team of wildlife organizations, governments, universities, other zoos and researchers to help conceive healthy offspring. PHOTOS BELOW – the Zoo’s Wildlife Health Centre
It’s easy to get to TORONTO ZOO – by car, from downtown, take the 401 Eastbound to Exit 389, Meadowvale Road. Follow the Zoo signs to 361A Old Finch Avenue. Large parking lot. By TTC bus, take the subway (Sheppard Line) to DON MILLS STATION. Bus #85 leaves from here, and will drop you in front of the Zoo entrance about 45 minutes later. Along the way, you’ll pass through suburban Don Mills and Scarborough.
GUY JONES is a videographer who brings history to life by editing old films and making them more watchable. He slows them down to a natural speed and adds sound – making them a totally new viewing experience. This one is a collection of high quality remastered prints from the dawn of film taken in Belle Époque-era Paris, 1896-1900, by the Lumière company —– 
It may not be the most glamourous neighbourhood in town, but it is unique. The Gerrard India Bazaar is one of the largest marketing centres for South Asian goods and services in North America. Here you’ll find over 100 shops, jewellery outlets and restaurants between Greenwood and Coxwell Avenues along Gerrard Street East. The Bazaar is the best place for earrings, bangles, saris, Bollywood music and videos, a couple of art galleries, vegetarian restaurants, an Islamic bookstore, gold and fashions from Dubai, India, Pakistan and Singapore. The eastbound #506 Carlton streetcar passes through the Bazaar.
Toronto Savvy 