Research & Advocacy

It is important to be informed as CDA advocates for Dance on a national scale. Several resources exist to keep you up to date with the latest statistics and trends that will strengthen your advocacy for dance within the sector and your communities.

Statistics and Reports for Dance Advocates

Published by CDA-ACD

• • • CDA Pre-Budget 2025 Submission
    • CDA response to 2024 Federal Budget  & Réponse de l’ACD au Budget Fédéral 2024
    • Federal Budget 2024
    • CDA’s response to PCH CCA cuts and Canadian-Arts-Coalition_Response-to-PCH-and-Council-Cuts_March-2024
    • Q&A with Canada Council for the Arts – November 2023
    • Recommandations de l’Assemblée canadienne de la danse dans le cadre de la deuxième consultation de la Révision du programme d’assurance-emploi
    • Dance Sector Recommendations for the Employment Insurance Program Review
    • The 2023 fall federal Pre-budget brief from CDA and the Canadian Art Coalition
    • Re-imagining Service Organizations: Decolonizing Canadian Dance – Year One Report (Strategic Partnerships in Dance) and Year Two Report (Landslide: Innovations in Service for Dance in Canada)

For the dance sector

• • • The Status of Women in the Canadian Arts and Cultural Industries – October 2018, The Ontario Arts Council
    • Gender Parity in the Canadian Arts Sector and the Barriers to Women’s Leadership – May 31, 2018, Kate Cornell of the Canadian Arts Coalition
    • Economic measures of the performing arts in Canada and Economic statistics by province of the performing arts in
      Canada (PTCI) – February 2018, Statistics Canada *Summary by the Canada Council here. *Summary and analysis by Hil Strategies Research here.
    • Arts and heritage access, and availability survey – August 2017, Department of Canadian Heritage
    • Vital Signs – Arts and Belonging – April 2017, Community Foundations of Canada and CAPACOA
    • Summary of The Canada Dance Mapping Study – January 2017, Canada Council for the Arts

For dance organizations

• • • Diversity and Drivers of Arts Attendance – May 2019, Commissioned by Nanos by Canada’s Performing Arts Alliance
    • Demographic Patterns in Canadians’ Arts Participation in 2016 – February 2019, Hill Strategies Research Inc
    • J Culture Track: Canada releases new data on the attitudes and behaviours of Canadian cultural consumers – June 2018, Business/Arts, LaPlaca Cohen, Nanos Research
    • 2017 National Compensation Study – For Managerial and Administrative Positions in Not-for-Profit Arts Organizations – April 2018, CHRC
    • Survey of the Social Impacts of Dance Organizations in Canada – 2016, EKOS Research Associations Inc for the Canada Council for the Arts

For individual artists

• • • A Statistical Profile of Artists in Canada in 2016 (with summary information about cultural workers) – March 2019, Hill Strategies Research Inc *this report has specific details for both “dancers” and “producers, directors & choreographers”.
    • Artist Career Research Methods (Executive Summary) – January 2019, Hill Strategies Research Inc and the Canada Council for the Arts *an in-depth Canadian and international literature review into methods used to understand artists’ work conditions, incomes, and career paths.
    • Professional Dance Performers in Canada in 2016 – Activities, incomes, health and career development – December 2016, DTRC
    • Who Can Afford to be a Starving Artist? – June 2016, Createquity
    • Canadian Actors’ Equity Association census – 2015 by, CAEA

Research organizations

• • The Canada Council for the Arts is passionate about knowledge mobilization and the promotion of an innovative, data driven culture in support of public funding of the arts in Canada.
  • Mass Culture is an arts support organization that strives to harness the power of research to learn and generate new insights, enabling the arts community to be strategic, focused and adaptive.
  • Hill Strategies publishes research regularly as they gather and analyze interesting data and qualitative research into the state of the arts in Canada – insights that are vital to the arts community’s advocacy, fundraising, market research, self-evaluation, and more!
  • CAPACOA, Canadian Association for the Performing Arts, seeks to be a catalyst for innovation in the performing arts. We engage in or support research projects that can generate new perspectives on the presentation of the performing arts.
  • Archipel Research & Consulting is an Indigenous-owned and women-led company bringing together a diverse team of Indigenous, non-Indigenous, and racialized associates with the goal of bridging worlds of knowledge. In our work, we aim to generate understanding and coexistence between communities through our socially engaged way of doing business according to Indigenous and anti-racist principles, theories, and methodologies.