Smoke gets in their ayes.

Canadian dance companies breathed a collective sigh of relief in early October when it became apparent that a draconian federal law banning tobacco advertising and sponsorships would not block the flow of money that cigarette manufacturers have traditionally channeled toward the arts. Some smaller dance organizations may even do better.

Canada's Liberal government, responding to the powerful lobbying of anti-smoking groups, first attempted a ban on tobacco advertising in 1995. Canada's Supreme Court quashed the law as an infringement of free speech. Two years later, Ottawa passed another Tobacco Act, triggering protests from cultural and sporting groups that, during a period of government cultural funding reductions, have found themselves increasingly dependent on tobacco money. The government relented by phasing in the restrictions progressively over a five-year period with full implementation by October 1, 2003. Among Canada's major tobacco companies the largest, Imperial Tobacco, has been the biggest supporter of the arts. In 1971 it created the du Maurier Arts Council, named after one of Imperial's brands. By the time of its enforced dissolution on September 30, 2003, the council had distributed $60 million (CDN) among more than 600 Canadian arts groups.

SINCE DANCE does not enjoy as high a profile in Canada as theater or music, it has rarely attracted the kind of du Maurier money enjoyed by Toronto's World Stage Theatre Festival or Winnipeg's New Music Festival. There were no big-budget du Maurier-sponsored dance festivals or performance series. Even so, relative to other sponsors of dance, du Maurier was not only generous but also enthusiastically willing to support innovation and risk. So the news that Imperial Tobacco will continue to support the arts through its corporate donations--$3 million over the next year--rather than through the outlawed sponsorships was widely welcomed. The company will be listed among corporate donors but there will be no promotion of its brands. Since smaller dance groups with annual budgets of less than $1.5 million are eligible to apply for larger grants under Imperial's new rules, companies such as Toronto's Dancemakers and Toronto's annual Fringe Festival of Independent Dance artists may end up receiving even more than they did before. Meanwhile, the larger dance groups are still eligible for six-figure amounts as before.

As for the sensitive question of whether dance companies should be accepting what anti-smoking groups call "blood money," Dancemakers's administrative director, Andrea Vagianos, reflects a pragmatic attitude widely held among arts administrators. "We cannot afford to be too scrupulous," she says, "as long as the sale of tobacco is legal and the government collects tax on it."