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 2026 Sub­mis­sion
    • CDA Pre-Bud­get Sub­mis­sion 2025
    • CDA Pre-Bud­get 2024 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.