Trish. Patricia Beatty
"“I don’t want to entertain. I want to compel.”
-- Patricia Beatty
via Paula Citron
“… teaching dance - I wanted to empower people. That’s what I was doing, hopefully. And who was in there? Mostly women and sensitive men. Well, those are the ones that are gonna save the planet, folks.”
--Patricia Beatty
DCD interview
This from TDT:
It is with deep sadness that Toronto Dance Theatre announces the passing of Patricia Beatty, one of the founders of both the company and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. The impact she made in the studio, on the stage, and in the dance community at large will be treasured, and her legacy will continue to reverberate throughout the work Toronto Dance Theatre does moving forward.
Trish, as she liked to be called, was one of Canada's most esteemed dance artists. After graduating from Bennington College in 1959 she began more intensive study with Martha Graham and José Limón in New York City. Her most significant work was when she returned to Canada, founding the New Dance Group of Canada in 1966, one of the first modern dance companies in the Toronto area. This became the foundation for Toronto Dance Theatre when she joined forces with David Earle and Peter Randazzo in 1968.
During her 25 years as co-director and resident choreographer, she created 24 original works for the company, including First Music (1969) and Seastill (1979). Her presence on stage and her dances themselves were always highly regarded when the company toured both internationally and across Canada.In reviewing Trish’s last work for Toronto Dance Theatre, Mandala, William Littler wrote: “Beatty being Beatty, it said more than it initially appeared to say, resonating from a centre of simple Grahamesque movement full of unison, stretched limbs, and geometric patterning to speak of things deeply felt … the dancers do not move as if kinetic activity were the purpose for this exercise… For Beatty, as for Graham, movement isn’t an end itself; it is a way of visualizing our interior landscape.” (“Beatty’s Last New Piece Speaks of Deep Feelings,” Toronto Star, 26 February 1992)
She was the recipient of many awards over the years, including the Victor Martyn-Lynch Staunton Award, The Toronto Arts Award, and The Dance Ontario Award, the last two of which she shared with David Earle and Peter Randazzo. In June of 2005, she was awarded the Order of Canada for her lifetime contribution to modern dance. In March 2019, Beatty, Earle, and Randazzo were inducted into Dance Collection Danse’s Encore! Dance Hall of Fame.
A pioneer in the development of modern dance in Canada, Trish was an incomparable dancer, choreographer and teacher, greatly influencing generations of dance artists through her craft and mentorship. As noted at the Dance Collection Danse induction ceremony into the Dance Hall of Fame: “The work that David, Peter, and Trish began when they founded the company and School has nurtured and inspired hundreds – probably thousands – of artists, many of whom they have not even met…. Their work has left and is still leaving a magnificent legacy in the world of dance.”
Our thoughts are with her loved ones and all of the dance community. Thank you for everything, Trish.
Against Sleep
"When I was 15, I went on a scholarship to The Banff School of Fine Arts summer school, surrounded by bunheads, as it was then the feeder school for the flourishing Royal Winnipeg Ballet and many came from near and far in hopes of bagging a place at RWB. That summer, Patricia Beatty, accompanied by Peggy Smith Baker and her new husband, the composer and musician Michael Baker, came to teach Graham technique.
They might as well have come from Pluto. Trish wore drop earrings like Noguchi sculptures. Her lean body, long back, dry humour - turns around the back, floorwork -Michael's incredible accompaniment - I drank down a new world in huge insatiable gulps.
I can shut my eyes and see Peggy's long distant figure among mountains, entirely focussed, tai chi in the summer afternoon grass. I took Peggy's class and there, my body found for the first time a place in the cadences of Modern Dance it had never found before as a student in Vancouver. Finally! I thought.
Then David Earle arrived. You need to understand that we students were learning the signets quartet from Erik Spohr and appearing in a staging of Act 1 swan lake. The leading student got gangrene from spraying her feet with a numbing agent so that she could keep dancing. But I digress.
David and Trish performed Against Sleep. All around me were fellow students who were disgusted - at best mystified. Trish performed a stark solo to Charles Ives "Unanswered Question". These two dances enthralled me completely.
TDT (Toronto Dance Theatre) came to Vancouver that fall. WHAT a group of beings they were! This unforgettable experience forged elements of my future. I wrote to Patricia Beatty and to my utter quivering, shimmering awe received a response from her - encouragement in her distinctive looping writing that was so much like the dancing she did. I had many encounters with her in subsequent years and loved her.
Susan McKenzie