ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THEATRE DANCE IN CANADA.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THEATRE DANCE IN CANADA. Editor: Susan McPherson. Toronto: Dance Collection Danse Press/es. 2000. English and French. 672 pages, illustrations. $29.95 (U.S.: $23.00 + $4.00 s&h). ISBN: 0-929003-42-x

Just over twenty years ago, professor Jill Officer of the now-defunct dance department at the University of Waterloo bagged a generous grant that enabled her to launch a project compiling an encyclopedia of Canadian dance. Questionnaires were sent out to everyone in Canada who ever shook a leg, and the 6,000 responses were fed into a database. But funding was ultimately withdrawn, and by 1984 the project was abandoned.

Lawrence and Miriam Adams of Dance Collection Danse, former artists with the National Ballet of Canada who have dedicated their retirement years to the preservation of the nation's dance resources, rescued the project and published the uncorrected data in electronic form in 1989 as Encyclopedia of Theatre Dance in Canada. By 1994, funding was acquired to commission 101 full biographical studies of prominent Canadian dancers, teachers and choreographers. The volume issued this year is an outgrowth of the earlier compilation, and its coverage has been extended to include entries for significant Canadian dance works, histories of Canada's major ballet and dance companies, and an impressive list of the original music composed for dance. The text is fully bilingual, and portraits adorn nearly all entries. A list of awards, prizes and honorary degrees bestowed on dancers enriches the book's resources.

The practicalities of publishing made it necessary for the editorial committee to make judicious choices on whom and what to include, and for the most part they have acted wisely. The result is the best reference resource on Canadian dance ever published, with useful information on artistic collaborations and documentation of theatrical premieres and the initial press response to them. Biographical entries were chosen for the significance of the subjects and in keeping with a mandate to acknowledge figures in all of Canada's far-flung regions. Perhaps half the entries represent pioneer dancers, teachers and choreographers who have long since stopped performing. Many have died and left remarkable legacies.

The more than 200 biographical entries appear to have been edited stringently in order to accommodate the bilingual format. None has the complement of a bibliography, but there is an extensive, chronologically arranged list of all books on Canadian dance published since 1943.

Important foreign-born dancers, choreographers and company directors who made a significant mark on Canadian dance, but went on to greener pastures--or to the hereafter--generally have been excluded. Other omissions raise questions: No entry exists for Kimberly Glasco, whose legal battle with the National Ballet of Canada last year over her dismissal afforded her and the company ample coverage in the world press. The publishers informed me that none of the contracted writers cared to take on the assignment. Much more alarming in this useful record of Canadian dance is the omission of entries for Lawrence and Miriam Adams. Modesty seems quaint when the contribution to the art has been nothing short of enormous.

(Available in selected Canadian bookstores by calling toll free 800/665-5320 or through [e-mail] or ww.dcd.ca)