Culture
In 1954 the Serb Youth Club in Toronto was formed, and its folk-dance group Stražilovo became one of the first highly successful dance groups in Canada.
Toronto’s folk-dance group Hajduk Veljko (founded in 1964) danced at the Montreal Olympics in 1976 and at Expo ’86 in Vancouver, and Toronto’s Oplenac (1973).
From the early 1950s to 1984 the Serbian Cultural Club St Sava was active in Toronto, publishing eight volumes in Serbian dealing with Serb history.
In 1968 the Serbian Orthodox Church of St Michael the Archangel hosted the "Belgrade" pavilion of the Toronto Caravan cultural festival, organized by the late Colette Sekulovich (née Leroy) which displayed many Serbian cultural artifacts, showcased Kolo dancing and other performance arts and gave the people of Toronto a chance to taste Serbian delicacies. The annual festival ran for over 30 years winning, in 2001, the Zena Kossar "Best Pavilion Award".
The Serbian Heritage Academy (SHA), formed in Toronto in 1981, has organized academic conferences, exhibits, and lectures. In 1984 it installed a bronze plaque at the University of Toronto’s Medical Sciences Building honouring Canadian doctors and nurses who had worked as volunteers in Serbia during World War I.
Serbian Cultural Association Oplenac was founded in 1987 in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Serbian folk dancing has been a major activity in SCA Oplenac since its inception as a non-profit organization. All proceeds from the events organized by SCA Oplenac go to the preservation and presentation of Serbian culture and tradition in North America. In 2012 it reached the company consisting of 8 large ensembles, Choir and Orchestra as well as a large recreational ensemble. They established Drama school for children that performs theatre plays on Serbian language as well as Serbian language school. Since 2000 it was clear that the association is undoubtedly the biggest Serbian folklore group in North America http://www.oplenac.ca
The first Serb bookstore, Srbica Books, was opened in Toronto in 1990 by Živko Apić.
Read more about this topic: Serbs Of Toronto
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“All our civilization had meant nothing. The same culture that had nurtured the kindly enlightened people among whom I had been brought up, carried around with it war. Why should I not have known this? I did know it, but I did not believe it. I believed it as we believe we are going to die. Something that is to happen in some remote time.”
—Mary Heaton Vorse (1874–1966)
“Unthinking people will often try to teach you how to do the things which you can do better than you can be taught to do them. If you are sure of all this, you can start to add to your value as a mother by learning the things that can be taught, for the best of our civilization and culture offers much that is of value, if you can take it without loss of what comes to you naturally.”
—D.W. Winnicott (20th century)