Recreation in Toronto

Last updated May 04, 2019

The CN Tower is one of several major attractions in Toronto. Gfp-canada-ontario-toronto-CN-tower-in-the-distance.jpg — The CN Tower is one of several major attractions in Toronto.

Recreation in Toronto consists of a varied selection of activities and events throughout the city year-round. Toronto boasts renowned theatre and arts communities, has a wide range of recreational public services, and offers many attractions for both residents and tourists.

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the most populous city in Canada, with a population of 2,731,571 in 2016. Current to 2016, the Toronto census metropolitan area (CMA), of which the majority is within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), held a population of 5,928,040, making it Canada's most populous CMA. Toronto is the anchor of an urban agglomeration, known as the Golden Horseshoe in Southern Ontario, located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A global city, Toronto is a centre of business, finance, arts, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.

Art and culture

Toronto has a broad and diverse cultural sector, and is a major scene for theatre and other performing arts. More than fifty ballet and dance companies, six opera companies, and two symphony orchestras are located in the city. Toronto 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.

Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers, typically actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον, itself from θεάομαι.

Performing arts are a form of art in which artists use their voices, bodies or inanimate objects to convey artistic expression. It is different from visual arts, which is when artists use paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Performing arts include a range of disciplines which are performed in front of a live audience.

One of the top international ballet companies, The National Ballet of Canada was founded in 1951 by Celia Franca. A company of 70 dancers with its own orchestra, the National Ballet has been led by Artistc Director Karen Kain, one of the greatest ballerinas of her generation, since 2005. Renowned for its diverse repertoire, the company performs traditional full-length classics, embraces contemporary work and encourages the creation of new ballets as well as the development of Canadian choreographers. The company’s repertoire includes works by Sir Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, John Cranko, Rudolf Nureyev, John Neumeier, William Forsythe, James Kudelka, Wayne McGregor, Alexei Ratmansky, Crystal Pite, Christopher Wheeldon, Aszure Barton, Guillaume Côté and Robert Binet. The National Ballet tours in Canada, the US and internationally with appearances in Paris, London, Moscow and St. Petersburg, Hamburg, New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a major museum for world culture and natural history. The Art Gallery of Ontario contains a large collection of Canadian, European, African and contemporary artwork. The Gardiner Museum of ceramic art consists of more than 2,900 ceramic works from Asia, the Americas, and Europe. The Bata Shoe Museum also features many unique exhibitions. The Don Valley Brick Works is a former industrial site, which opened in 1889, and has recently been restored as a park and heritage site.

The Royal Ontario Museum is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year, making the ROM the most-visited in Canada. The museum is north of Queen's Park, in the University of Toronto district, with its main entrance on Bloor Street West. The Museum subway station of the Toronto Transit Commission is named after the ROM and, since a 2008 renovation, is decorated to resemble the institution's collection.

In anthropology and geography, a cultural region, cultural sphere, cultural area or culture area refers to a geography with one relatively homogeneous human activity or complex of activities (culture). These are often associated with an ethnolinguistic group and the territory it inhabits. Specific cultures often do not limit their geographic coverage to the borders of a nation state, or to smaller subdivisions of a state. Cultural "spheres of influence" may also overlap or form concentric structures of macrocultures encompassing smaller local cultures. Different boundaries may also be drawn depending on the particular aspect of interest, such as religion and folklore vs. dress and architecture vs. language.

Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms including animals, fungi and plants in their environment; leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is called a naturalist or natural historian.

Annual events

The oldest annual fair in the world, the Canadian National Exhibition, is held annually at Exhibition Place. It is Canada's largest annual fair and the fifth largest in the world, with an average attendance of 1.5 million.^[1]

The Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), also known as The Exhibition or The Ex, is an annual event that takes place at Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, during the 18 days leading up to and including Canadian Labour Day, the first Monday in September. With approximately 1.5 million visitors each year, the CNE is Canada's largest annual fair and the fifth largest in North America. The first Canadian National Exhibition took place in 1879, largely to promote agriculture and technology in Canada. Agriculturists, engineers, and scientists exhibited their discoveries and inventions at the CNE to showcase the work and talent of the nation. As Canada has grown as a nation, the CNE has also changed over time, reflecting the growth in diversity and innovation, though agriculture and technology remain a large part of the CNE today. To many people in the Greater Toronto Area and the surrounding communities, the CNE is an annual family tradition.

Exhibition Place is a publicly owned mixed-use district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located by the shoreline of Lake Ontario, just west of downtown. The 197-acre (80 ha) site includes exhibit, trade, and banquet centres, theatre and music buildings, monuments, parkland, sports facilities, and a number of civic, provincial, and national historic sites. The district's facilities are used year-round for exhibitions, trade shows, public and private functions, and sporting events.

Toronto's Caribana festival is one of North America's largest street festivals,^[2] taking place from mid-July to early August of every summer. The first Caribana took place in 1967 when the city's Caribbean community celebrated Canada's Centennial year. Forty 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 generates about $300 million in revenues.

The Toronto Caribbean Carnival, formerly and still commonly called Caribana, is a festival of Caribbean culture and traditions held each summer in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a Caribbean Carnival event, that has been billed as North America's largest street festival, frequented by over 1.3 million visitors each year for the festival's final parade and an overall attendance of 2 million. The entire event, which is one of the first Caribbean Carnivals along with those in New York City, Notting Hill and Boston to be held outside of the Caribbean region, brings in over one million people to Toronto and over $400 million into Ontario's economy, annually.

The Caribbean is a region of The Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands and the surrounding coasts. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America, and north of South America.

Lake Shore Boulevard is a major arterial road running along more than half of the Lake Ontario waterfront in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Prior to 1998, two segments of Lake Shore Boulevard were designated as part of Highway 2, with the highway following the Gardiner Expressway between these two sections.

Pride Week 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.

LGBT, or GLBT, is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the term is an adaptation of the initialism LGB, which was used to replace the term gay in reference to the LGBT community beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s. Activists believed that the term gay community did not accurately represent all those to whom it referred.

A gay village is a geographical area with generally recognized boundaries, inhabited or frequented by a large number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Gay villages often contain a number of gay-oriented establishments, such as gay bars and pubs, nightclubs, bathhouses, restaurants, boutiques and bookstores.

Church and Wellesley is an LGBT-oriented enclave in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is roughly bounded by Gerrard Street to the south, Yonge Street to the west, Charles Street to the north, and Jarvis Street to the east, with the core commercial strip located along Church Street from Wellesley south to Alexander. Though some gay and lesbian oriented establishments can be found outside this area, the general boundaries of this village have been defined by the Gay Toronto Tourism Guild.

The Toronto Santa Claus Parade is the world's longest-running children's parade.^{[ citation needed ]} Held annually in mid-November, the event draws more than half a million visitors each year. The parade is also televised and broadcast around the world.

Numerous other events take place in the city, such as the Toronto International Film Festival, which screens films in a number of a cinemas across Toronto. These are sponsored by federal, provincial and municipal government, by local business and international companies, by community groups, and by volunteer, charitable, educational and religious organizations.

Attractions

Toronto's most famous landmark is the CN Tower. Defining the Toronto skyline, the 553.33 m (1,815 ft, 5 in) structure is an important telecommunications hub and a centre of tourism.

Doors Open Toronto is a free event held in the spring that showcases many of the city's unique and historically significant buildings to the public.

Sport

The city has a broad range of professional sport franchises, with clubs in six major North American leagues. With approximately 200 matches contested in the city, attending a professional game is possible throughout the year. The city is famously known for the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey franchise, and is also home to the Toronto Argonauts, Toronto Blue Jays, Toronto Raptors, Toronto Rock, and Toronto FC.

Attending an amateur sporting event is affordable, with plentiful options throughout the city in many sports. There is also strong participation in amateur and recreational sporting activities in Toronto, reflecting the active urban lifestyle it promotes.

Annual sporting events in the city include professional events such as the Grand Prix of Toronto or amateur events such as the International Bowl. The city has also hosted international events, such as the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup.

Related Research Articles

Canada has a large domestic and foreign tourism industry. The second largest country in the world, Canada's incredible geographical variety is a significant tourist attractor. Much of the country's tourism is centred in the following (busiest) regions: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver/Whistler, Niagara Falls, Vancouver Island, Calgary/Canadian Rockies, British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, and the national capital region Ottawa. The large cities are known for their culture, diversity, as well as the many national parks and historic sites.

Summer brings many festivals to the province of Alberta. Edmonton's Fringe Festival is the world's second largest after Edinburgh's. Edmonton also hosts some of Canada's largest folk festivals, cultural festivals, and heritage days. Calgary is also home to Carifest, the second largest Caribbean festival in the nation.

Centennial College of Applied Arts and Technology is a diploma and degree granting college located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the oldest publicly funded college in Ontario. Its campuses are primarily situated in the east side of the city, particularly in Scarborough, with a new aerospace centre currently under construction at Downsview. The enabling legislation is the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act. Centennial College is recognized as one of the most culturally diverse post-secondary institutions in Ontario. Almost 100 ethno-cultural groups are represented and 80 languages are spoken on campus. In 2016, Centennial was ranked as one of Canada's Top 10 Research Colleges for the first time in its history. Its main research facilities are its Wearable, Interactive and Mobile Technologies Access Centre in Healthcare, established in 2015 through a $1.75 million federal grant. and its new aerospace innovation hub, currently under construction at the former de Havilland plant in west-end Toronto.

Numerous festivals, shows and exhibitions are held annually in Toronto. They include:

The culture of New York City is reflected in its size and ethnic diversity. Many American cultural movements first emerged in the city. The Harlem Renaissance established the African-American renaissance in the United States. Large numbers of Italian immigrants, Italian Americans, and Jews also emigrated to New York throughout the twentieth century, significantly influencing the culture and image of New York City. American modern dance developed in New York in the early 20th century. The city was the top venue for jazz in the 1940s, expressionism in the 1950s and home to hip hop, punk rock, and the Beat Generation.

The culture of London concerns the engineering, music, museums, festivals and other entertainment in London, the capital city of the United Kingdom. London is widely believed to be the culture capital of the world, although this title is disputed with a number of other cities internationally. The city is particularly renowned for its theatre quarter, and its West End theatre district has given the name to "West End theatre", the strand of mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres in London. London is also home to notable cultural attractions such as the British Museum, the Tate Galleries, the National Gallery, the Notting Hill Carnival and The O2.

Toronto is the largest city of Canada and its most ethnically diverse one; many immigrant cultures have brought their traditions, languages and music.

Nuit Blanche is an annual all-night or night-time arts festival of a city. A Nuit Blanche will typically have museums, private and public art galleries, and other cultural institutions open and free of charge, with the centre of the city itself being turned into a de facto art gallery, providing space for art installations, performances, themed social gatherings, and other activities.

Montreal was referred to as "Canada's Cultural Capital" by Monocle Magazine. The city is Canada's centre for French-language television productions, radio, theatre, film, multimedia and print publishing. The Quartier Latin is a neighbourhood crowded with cafés animated by this literary and musical activity. Montreal's many cultural communities have given it a distinct local culture.

Tourism in metropolitan Detroit, Michigan is a significant factor for the region's culture and for its economy, comprising nine percent of the area's two million jobs. About 15.9 million people visit Metro Detroit annually, spending an estimated $4.8 billion. Detroit is one of the largest American cities and metropolitan regions to offer casino resort hotels. Leading multi-day events throughout Metro Detroit draw crowds of hundreds of thousands to over three million people. More than fifteen million people cross the highly traveled nexus of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel annually. Detroit is at the center of an emerging Great Lakes Megalopolis. An estimated 46 million people live within a 300-mile (480 km) radius of Metro Detroit.

Aberystwyth Arts Centre arts centre of the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, Wales

Aberystwyth Arts Centre is an arts centre in Wales, located on Aberystwyth University's Penglais campus. One of the largest in Wales, it comprises a theatre, concert hall, studio and cinema, as well as four gallery spaces and cafés, bars, and shops.

The culture of Paris concerns the arts, music, museums, festivals and other entertainment in Paris, the capital city of France. The city is today one of the world's leading business and cultural centers; entertainment, music, media, fashion, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities.

Ontario is Canada's largest province in population and second largest province in size, covering close to one million square kilometres. It borders the United States to the south, and the provinces of Quebec to the east and Manitoba to the west. Its southernmost point, Middle Island, off Pelee Island, has the same latitude as Rome, Italy. The northernmost point at Ontario-Manitoba border is close to that of London, England, and Warsaw, Poland. Around 250,000 lakes can be found in Ontario, making up approximately one-third of the world's fresh water.

Harbourfront Centre is a key cultural organization on the waterfront of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated at 235 Queens Quay West. Established as a crown corporation in 1972 by the federal government to create a waterfront park, it became a non-profit organization in 1991. Funding comes from corporate sponsors, government grants, individual donors and entrepreneurial activities. Harbourfront Centre has a seating capacity of 2,000.

The Tirgan Festival (Persian: جشنواره تیرگان is a biennial four-day celebration of Iranian arts and culture held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Festival celebrates Iranian arts and culture through an array of artistic and literary disciplines including music, dance, cinema, theatre, history, literature and visual arts.. Our festivals are held in multiple prestigious locations in Toronto, such as the Harbourfront Centre, the Distillery District, and St. Lawrence Center for the Arts. Tirgan Festival accommodates over 250 artists, 140 performances, and professional speakers.

Now known as the Peeks Toronto Caribbean Carnival, Caribana began as a one-time celebration of the Canadian Centennial in Ontario's provincial capital city. Within the first five years, 1967 to 1971, the festival aimed to share West Indian culture with the community at large, and to fund the creation of a permanent West Indian cultural centre.

References

↑ "CNE - About Us". Canadian National Exhibition. 2006. Archived from the original on 2006-11-20. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
↑ "Toronto Caribbean Carnival (Caribana) Festival 2006". WORD Magazine. 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-11.

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[1] "CNE - About Us". Canadian National Exhibition. 2006. Archived from the original on 2006-11-20. Retrieved 2006-12-29.

[Caribana-2] "Toronto Caribbean Carnival (Caribana) Festival 2006". WORD Magazine. 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-11.