The Toronto Caribbean Carnival and the intersection of emancipation, history and dance: With Ronald A. Taylor & Collette ‘Coco’ Murray (Part 1)

About Ronald A. Taylor:

Ronald A. Taylor is the Artistic Director of the Toronto-based company Ronald Taylor Dance (formerly known as Canboulay Dance Theatre) founded in 1993. Taylor’s talent was first nurtured by the late Astor Johnson of the innovative Repertory Dance Theatre (Trinidad). After leaving Trinidad and Tobago, the birthplace of internationally acclaimed dance pioneers Geoffrey Holder and Beryl McBurnie, Taylor enrolled in the renowned The Juilliard School – Dance division in New York. Under Héctor Zaraspe, international ballet master and private teacher to Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, Taylor graduated with a BFA in Dance. His stay with Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) afforded him two prestigious awards – the DTH Scholarship Award and the Maxwell and Muriel Bluck Scholarship Award.  Taylor moved to Canada in the early ’90’s and emerged as a leading force in Black Dance. During that period, he turned his focus on training new graduates in theater and dance, at the same time collaborating with the umbrella of dance organization “Dance Immersion”. True to his Caribbean roots, his work fuses Modern with Folk, and traditional Ballet in a distinctive style which Taylor describes as “Contemporary Caribbean”. Ronald has successfully pursued a Master of Arts degree at York University. In his capacity as dance educator, Taylor taught at York’s Faculty of Fine Arts and at designated school programs across Ontario, Western Canada, Belize, USA and parts of the Caribbean. He was also selected to be part of The Djerassi Resident Artists Program in California, a program internationally recognized as one of the eminent artist residency programs for artists of superior talent, who are chosen from a diverse range of backgrounds and geographical locations. | Instagram: @ronaldataylordance