It may not be the largest gallery/archives/museum in town, but DANCE COLLECTION DANSE, 149 Church Street (301) in TORONTO has a devoted following both online and on-site. Founded in 1986, the national archive and publisher is dedicated to the preservation of Canada’s theatrical dance history. Programming combines collection, exhibition, preservation, research, publishing and education. Website: http://www.dcd.ca
PHOTO ABOVE – Jean Grand-Maître, Artistic Director, Alberta Ballet with Swan Lake dancers (2012) – “Dance Collection Danse’s efforts to preserve and archive the vibrant and ground breaking legacy of Canada’s internationally acclaimed artists is as important to our culture as the creators’ repertoire. I applaud them for their valiant efforts and for being such excellent caretakers of an often neglected art form.”
Justin Trudeau, now Canada’s Prime Minister, and his younger brother Sacha, tries out the Nutcracker sleigh, surrounded by the National Ballet’s Artistic Director Alexander Grand and Principal Dancer Nadia Potts.
Detail from The Nutcracker backdrop, painted in the late 1940’s
Costume sketches from the Charlottetown Festival by Frances Dafoe
Jury Gotshalks and Irene Apinee, Swan Lake, 1951 – Hours: Monday to Friday, 10-4 or by appointment.
<The twins as they were in October, PHOTO – Toronto Zoo> 
<As they are today, PHOTO – Toronto Zoo> Twin giant pandas, born a month ago at TORONTO Zoo have outgrown their incubators and are moving into a larger home. They’re still vulnerable, but appear to be doing well and growing quickly.
Er Shun, their mother, spends most of her time with them in the Zoo’s maternity centre. As giant panda mothers can only look after one cub at a time, zoo keepers are using a technique called ‘twin swapping’. It seems to be working.
MICHAEL COOK is a TORONTO photographer, writer and urban explorer. His website – 
<PHOTO ABOVE – emerging in Wilson Heights, and BELOW – looking down into the Viceroy Drain storm sewer (Highway 427 south in Etobicoke)>
Self-taught photographer JEREMY KAI is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCADU). Lately he’s been spending quality time below ground in our city’s network of waterways, rivers, pipes and drains – and the result is “Rivers Forgotten”, from Koyama Press.
“Rivers Forgotten”, 72 pages, Koyama Press, 
Her Majesty greeted Prime Minister Trudeau today by saying it’s “nice to see you again… but under different circumstances.” . . . . . “I will say, you were much taller than me the last time we met,” Trudeau told the Queen, 40 years after being introduced by his father, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, as a 3 year-old.
In 1978, the Queen was leaving Canada and a military band was playing, so 3-year-old Sacha and 5-year-old Justin (on the right below) marched back and forth while their father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, walked to his plane. <PHOTO – Toronto Star>
Says VOGUE – “sexy, feminist, and capable of balancing a baby on one hand: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gets our vote.” <PHOTO – Justin Trudeau in the Library of Parliament, Ottawa, Jonathan Becker/VOGUE Magazine>
It seemed like a good idea in the 1950’s – tear down ramshackle Victorian-era houses and replace them with low-rise apartment buildings and a few tower blocks arranged around dead-end laneways and streets. <PHOTO ABOVE – Regent Park, 1950-60’s> The substandard housing, crime and social problems disappeared for a while, but then re-appeared. By the mid-1960’s Regent Park – and similar neighbourhoods across North America – had fallen on hard times. 
Sixty years later the City of TORONTO, working with a private developer and the provincial and federal governments, is two-thirds of the way through a massive rebuilding project. A new Regent Park is emerging, doubling the number of units, providing superb playgrounds, an aquatic centre and other sports facilities, old street patterns re-established, market-value and public housing mixed together.
The revitalization plan has 5 phases. With Phase 3 underway, a large swath of tired, old buildings between River and Parliament Streets are coming down. The plan is to finish the entire project within the next five years.
A row of once-derelict shipping containers in front of the Scadding Court Community Centre has added colour and movement to an otherwise undistinguished Dundas Street West (at Bathurst) sidewalk. Market 707, assembled by the City of TORONTO and LGA Architectural Partners, has been a going concern for over two years.
The Market mixes food from local farmers into a variety of diverse cuisines. There’s also a bike-tuneup shop and an artist collective on the premises. Each container is modified to include roll-up doors and canopies as well as power and water infrastructure to support a number of small food vending businesses.
<SUMMERTIME PHOTOS by Bob Fundu/architecturallab.net>
Toronto Savvy 