CULTURE OF TORONTO
Toronto, Canada, is a city of many museums, theatres, events and sports. It is also one of the most ethnically diverse cities in Canada and the world. This means that there are many cultures which bring along their traditions and music. Toronto is also home to the Canadian National Exhibition, one of Canada's largest outdoor fairs.
Toronto is a major scene for theatre and other performing arts, with more than fifty ballet and dance companies, six opera companies, and two symphony orchestras. The city is home to the National Ballet of Canada, the Canadian Opera Company, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Notable performance venues include the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Roy Thomson Hall, the Princess of Wales Theatre, the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Massey Hall, the Toronto Centre for the Arts, the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres and the Hummingbird Centre (formerly the "O'Keefe Centre").
Ontario Place features the world's first permanent IMAX movie theatre, the Cinesphere, as well as the Molson Amphitheatre, an open-air venue for large-scale music concerts. Each summer, the Canadian Stage Company presents an outdoor Shakespeare production in Toronto’s High Park called "Dream in High Park". Canada's Walk of Fame acknowledges the achievements of successful Canadians, with of a series of stars on designated blocks of sidewalks along King Street and Simcoe Street.
The Distillery District is a pedestrian village containing boutiques, art galleries, restaurants, artist studios and small breweries, including the well-known Mill Street Brewery. A new theatre in the district, the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, is the home of the Soulpepper Theatre Company and the drama productions of nearby George Brown College.
The production of domestic and foreign film and television is a major local industry. Many movie releases are screened in Toronto prior to wider release in North America. The Toronto International Film Festival is one of the most important annual events for the international film industry. Europe's largest film studio, Pinewood Studios Group of London, is scheduled to open a major new film studio complex in west-end Toronto, with five sound stages, with the first two to open by fall 2008.
Toronto's Caribana festival takes place from mid-July to early August of every summer, and is one of North America's largest street festivals For the most part, Caribana is based on the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, and the first Caribana took place in 1967 when the city's Caribbean community celebrated Canada's Centennial year. 40 years later, it has grown to attract one million people to Toronto's Lake Shore Boulevard annually. Tourism for the festival is in the hundred thousands, and each year, the event brings in about $300 million.
Pride Week in Toronto takes place in mid-June, and is one of the largest LGBT festivals in the world. It attracts more than one million people from all over the world, and is one of the largest events to take place in the city. Toronto is major centre for gay and lesbian culture and entertainment, and the gay village is located in the Church and Wellesley area of Downtown.
 EXHIBITS
Toronto has a world-renowned museum, the Royal Ontario Museum (frequently referred to as "the ROM"), and one of North America's largest art galleries, the Art Gallery of Ontario (also known as the "AGO").
Exhibition Place is the home of the Canadian National Exhibition (the CNE or "the Ex"), an annual event that takes place in August which also hosts the Canadian International Air Show. Nearby Ontario Place is a popular amusement park on the waterfront.
It has a vibrant visual arts scene, with artist-run venues such as Mercer Union and YYZ Artists' Outlet presenting important exhibitions of contemporary art from both the local area and abroad.
PERFORMING ARTS
Toronto is home to Canada's most active English language theatre scene, and is considered to be the third largest centre for English language theatre in the world, behind New York City and London, England. It is home to both acclaimed works by companies as the Soulpepper Theatre Company, the Canadian Stage, and Tarragon Theatre and large Broadway style musicals. Several Broadway theatrical hits originated in Toronto, such as the 1993 revival of Show Boat and Ragtime.
Venues for theatre include the Canon Theatre (formerly Pantages Theatre and Pantages Cinema), the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres, the Princess of Wales Theatre, the Royal Alexandra Theatre, the Poor Alex Theatre, and the Harbourfront Centre.
Musical venues in Toronto include Roy Thomson Hall, home to Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO); the Toronto Centre for the Arts in North York; the Hummingbird Centre and Massey Hall. The National Ballet of Canada and the Canadian Opera Company are based in Toronto; they both moved into the purpose-built Four Seasons Centre in 2006.
As Canada's largest city and the main centre of its recording industry, Toronto is also home to many Canadian pop, rock, and hip hop artists. This includes both musicians native to Toronto and those who have moved to Toronto from other towns and cities. The live music scene in Toronto is centred primarily in the Queen Street West area, part of what is known as the Entertainment District, although not all of Toronto's music venues are in this neighbourhood.
More established acts play at venues such as Lee's Palace, The Opera House, The Horseshoe Tavern, The Mod Club, The Phoenix Concert Theatre, The Guvernment, and Kool Haus (formerly known as the Warehouse). Major concert tours by stars are usually booked into larger venues such as Air Canada Centre, Hummingbird Centre, the Rogers Centre and the Molson Amphitheatre at Ontario Place.
EVENTS
Toronto plays host to a variety of different events year-round. In September, Hollywood celebrities, actors, writers, directors, and producers from around the world descend on the city for the Toronto International Film Festival, which, according to a variety of sources, has surpassed Cannes as the number one film festival in the world. The Molson Indy is held in Toronto every year in July.
The last week of June is Pride Week, where LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer) community members gather from national and international backgrounds to celebrate sexual diversity. The week is celebrated with both a Pride Parade and Dyke March along with various other pro-LGBTQ events. It is one of the largest Gay Pride celebrations in the world, together with Montreal, San Francisco, California and Parada do Orgulho GLBT de Sao Paulo.
In July, Caribana, the largest Caribbean festival in North America, attracts more than one million celebrants for the concerts, the food, the King and Queen of the Bands competition, and the very popular Caribana parade.
The Ontario civic holiday which is called Colonel By Day in Ottawa, Peter Robinson Day in Peterborough and Simcoe Day in Toronto and in most of Ontario, named after the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe.
TOURISM
Toronto has a thriving tourism industry as it has many landmarks and attractions, the most popular of which is the CN Tower. The city has largely recovered from the 2003 SARS outbreak; however, the tourism industry had to make certain cuts, with some elements not having yet returned to the status quo. The strong Canadian dollar and tighter border security have both resulted in a drop of US visitors, while tourists from overseas continue to increase.
One of Toronto's major annual attractions is the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), attendance to which is a family tradition for some.
Regular sporting events, such as home games of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Blue Jays, Toronto Raptors, Toronto FC, Toronto Marlies, Toronto Rock, and the Argonauts, also bring many tourists to the city every year.
MUSIC
Perhaps the most notable band to emerge from Toronto is three-piece rock band Rush, which has been active since 1968. The band's bassist, keyboardist, and vocalist, Geddy Lee, was born in Toronto; bandmate Alex Lifeson grew up in the city. An instrumental named "YYZ" after the Toronto Pearson International Airport's IATA airport code was featured on the band's 1981 album Moving Pictures, and has been a fan favorite and mainstay of live shows ever since.
NIGHTLIFE
The city's art community attracts and has top theatre groups, galleries, and other high culture attractions.
The bar scene is housed in many different sections of the city, each with its own flavour and type of patrons. The "Entertainment District," however, has the highest concentration of nightclubs, bars, and restaurants in the city. There are approximately 90 nightclubs located in this one square kilometre area. The venues in this neighbourhood are collectively licensed for 56,000 nightclub patrons and 38,000 restaurant and bar goers. .
Toronto's entertainment district is roughly located south of Queen Street West, north of King Street West (Toronto's Theatre District), west of University Avenue, and east of Spadina Avenue. The main "entertainment" streets in this neighbourhood are Richmond Street, Adelaide Street, Peter Street, John Street, Duncan Street, Mercer Street, and Soho Street.
There are other notable neighbourhoods that come alive at night: "The Annex" (serving the university student population), "Little Italy" on College Street, "Yonge and Eglinton" (aka. the Young and the Eligible), "Church and Wellesley" (Gaybourhood), "Queen West" (between Spadina Avenue and Bathurst Street), "Greektown," and "The St. Lawrence Market" (numerous bars and restaurants on Front Street East and The Esplanade).
The city's many dance and live music venues host a plethora of international and Canadian performers.
Toronto's comedy clubs are legendary. They have served as training grounds for stars such as Jim Carrey, The Kids in the Hall and SCTV.
Retrieved from Wikipedia.org, the Free Encyclopedia
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