The earliest known Danish folk dance group in the Toronto area, was lead by John Madsen who with his wife Betty, taught Danish and some Swedish folk dances from 1932 to 1952.
It took until 1986 before Danish folk dancing again came to Toronto when it was resurrected by members of the Danish Lutheran Church with Liss Christensen as the instructor and with live music, violin, piano, and clarinet. Their first performance was in 1987 at Sunset Villa for the annual “Grundlovsdag “festivities and later that year they performed at The Ontario Science Center with groups from many other countries. It was a great success; the Danes brought their own musicians, while most other groups had taped music.
In 1988, the folk dancers invited the “Trekanten” Folk dancers from Vejle, Denmark to visit them in Canada.
In 1989 the Danish Folk dancers participated with more than a thousand folk dancers, representing 68 nations in native costumes in the opening ceremonies for the Sky dome arena.
Members of the Danish Folk dancers of Toronto have participated in the Nordlek Scandinavian folk Festival on several occasions since 1991 in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway.
The group has been active over the years with trips to Montreal and Kingston to visit the Danish Clubs, organizing “Tivoli fest” in the Danish Lutheran Church, celebrating Danish Christmas traditions at Casa Loma. In December 2011 we performed at the Christmas Market in the Distillery District and in April 2012 we celebrated our 25th anniversary with a “Krobal” at the Danish Lutheran Church.
We have performed at several senior residences both in and outside Toronto and we have joined with both the Swedish and Finnish folk dance groups on many occasions.
We continue to perform annually at Sunset Villa and at the Royal and Thanksgiving Dinners at the Danish Lutheran Church.
(With thanks to Audrey Urszulan)