Toronto is the city of cultural roots and flourishing art. It is auspicious place for creating and admiring art. If you enjoy one of these options or both of them, you should certainly visit this amazing place. In this article, you will find more about the cultural life of Toronto which is certainly vibrant and absorbing.
Is Toronto the cultural capital?
Many people believe Toronto is the cultural capital of Canada. Whether it is true or not, the city is undeniably featured by a turbulent cultural life. For instance, if you look at the global rankings of the cities with the highest level of the development of English theatre, you will see that Toronto is comes alongside London and New York which certainly very impressive.
There is nothing strange in it though, since there is a huge variety of modern theatres as well as historic ones in this Canadian city. Some examples of particularly notable cultural organisations located in Toronto are the Mendelssohn Choir, The National Ballet company, the Canadian Opera Company and the Toronto Symphony orchestra. This itself is enough for visiting Toronto in order to get a taste of real art.
When it comes to the theatres of particularly great significance, they are the Princess of wales Theatre, the Royal Alexandra Theatre, the Tarragon Theatre, the Revue Cinema, the Ed Mirvish Theatre as well as the Young People’s Theatre.
Even though the cultural traditions of Toronto are really impressive, it is still difficult to say whether this city is a real cultural capital of Canada, since there are two other extremely important cities for the cultural life of Canada which are Vancouver and Montreal.
The cinema industry of Toronto
While the theatres located in Toronto are world-known, not many people are aware of the significant part of this city in the film production. For instance, have you ever heard about the fact one fourth of all of the Hollywood films have been filmed in this Canadian city?
The film industry of Toronto employees nearly 28000 people at the moment. The revenue of the industry in this city is over 1.5 billion on the annual scale.
Many world-known and widely loved movie stars are actually from Toronto. Mike Myers, Keanu Reeves as well as Jim Carey are some of the most prominent of them. Needless to say, Toronto is a perfect place for visitors who secretly hope to run into some celebrities while exploring the city.
On top of that, Toronto is a home to The Toronto International Film Festival which used to be known as The Festival of festivals. This is one of the most crucial film festivals organised in North America and it will be a great alternative to Cannes in case you have no chance to visit this world-known European film festival.
The Toronto International Film Festival is organised every September and attracts celebrities from the entire world. During the festival, you will have a chance of seeing the new movies at the Bell Lightbox downtown which is itself spectacular. Needless to say, the best way to learn why the Toronto International Film Festival Toronto was called the Festival of Festivals rather than Cannes is to visit the festival and enjoy what it has to offer.
Are you looking for a perfect place for developing your art career or you are just thinking about attractive locations to discover the art of others? Toronto can be a perfect choice for you. So far there are over 23700 artists residing in this city. There are many reasons for such popularity of this city among the people of art.
One of the crucial factors making artists to choose this city over others is the fact there are twice more galleries and museums located in Toronto than in other major Canadian cities. As a result, there are also twice more artists both elite and underground working in Toronto than in other cities of Canada.
The largest single day parade in entire North America is organised in Toronto
As you can imagine, Toronto is also a home to many amazing cultural events and parades are one of them. One of the most fantastic things about this city is the fact the largest single-day parade of North America is organised in this Canadian city. More interestingly, this parade is known as Caribana.
Caribana is held on the 1st of August as you can imagine, the festival is Caribbean. Caribana lasts for 12 hours during which you will be able to admire ten thousand participants wearing amazing colourful costumes! The colourfulness and decorations of this parade make this parade comparable to London’s Notting Hill Carnival as well as Rio’s Carnival.
The route of the parade takes 3.5 kilometres and it is definitely something you cannot miss while being in Canada during the autumn.