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:
“Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
—Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)
“Popular culture is seductive; high culture is imperious.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)