Thank you, Heidi!

After two years as Artistic Lead at Dance Arts Institute, Heidi Strauss is turning her full focus back to her role as Artistic Director of multiple Dora award-winning company adelheid. 

Heidi joined Dance Arts (formerly the School of Toronto Dance Theatre) in November 2024 at a decisive moment in the school’s history. Threatened with imminent closure, the organization was in crisis. Recognizing both the legacy that would be lost and the diminishing national landscape of conservatory-style post-secondary dance training, Heidi brought to the school both clarity and calmness, undergirded by a commitment to student-centered artistic development and deep valuing of collaboration and community. With only 11 dancers across a three-year program still reeling from the global COVID-19 pandemic, Heidi deeply understood the importance of meeting the students where they were at, approaching each dancer with a holistic view to both their learning and wellbeing. This was key to ensuring Dance Arts’ commitment to providing exceptional artistic training while supporting students beyond the studio. 

With guidance from the board, Heidi shepherded the historic return to 80 Winchester Street as Dance Arts’ primary training facility in February 2025, helped stabilize the organization’s finances, and stewarded systems and internal process change. Alongside these efforts, she restored key relationships with students, staff, faculty, and artists, and forged renewed alliances with SummerWorks and other Canadian dance organizations. Through close collaboration with staff, Heidi oversaw the creation of a refreshed brand and identity that brought greater attention to the school’s renewed role in Canada’s professional dance training milieu. Building on the foundation of the existing three-year diploma curriculum, she helped invigorate the program through the reinstatement of the school’s community-centered offerings, resulting in the re-establishment of important ties with the dance community in Toronto and across the country. These achievements have provided a strong foundation for fostering key relationships essential to our growth as one of Canada’s primary dance training programs. 

With courage, Heidi has led the organization through one of the most challenging and tumultuous periods in its history, fostering an educational environment grounded in collaboration, partnership, trust, and reciprocity. Not only has she set a firm path for the school’s future prosperity, Heidi has instilled principles and ways of working that will remain pillars of the organization’s culture, and will undoubtedly shape Dance Arts for many years to come. 

From the board, the students, the staff, the faculty, and the dance community at large, thank you, Heidi, for your generosity of time, skill, and spirit. All of Dance Arts owes you an immense debt of gratitude. 

The Board of Directors

Dance Arts Institute

Photo of Heidi Strauss taken by Jeremy Mimnagh