My name is Joanne Camilleri and I am the founder and artistic director of a Creative Arts Space called Vivace Studios School of Visual and Performing Arts. We provide dance and fitness classes as well as a venue for local artists of all genres (film, dance, theatre, visual arts) to rehearse, create and offer workshops. I am also a professional belly dance choreographer and teacher presently working on a 45 minute show called "Inanna" which I hope to offer as a workshop this June. My collaborators are Chris Hall who composes all my music, Keith Holding who directs and records my work and a team of 8 wonderful dancers "The Joanne Camilleri Dance Company".

I am a single mom with 3 beautiful daughters so I sometimes find that the demands of being a mom, dancer, choreographer and building a new creative arts space to be overwhelming! I have so little free time that meeting and networking with other like minded individuals is a challenge.
Balancing my artisic work as I navigate new business skills and community outreach is both rewarding and at times...impossible. Toronto is such a great city filled with word class artistis but reaching out and connecting to it in a direct way has often seemed hard. All the great artists I know are broke and struggling financially from one grant application to the next seeking funding so they can continue to do what they love and were born to do. I wish that we could support each other more. We are all allies in one big community and hopefully "with a little help from our friends" can continue to create works of vision and beauty in this great city.