Veronica Tennant

Veronica Tennant

Prima Ballerina with The National Ballet of Canada for 25 years, Veronica Tennant, won hearts and accolades on the national and international stage, dancing with such luminaries as Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Since 1989, she has become acclaimed as a gifted filmmaker, writer, producer/director, with her works garnering several Gemini Awards and the prestigious International Emmy Award.

A gifted communicator, she has also built an extensive reputation as narrator, actor, broadcaster, and lecturer. Forming Veronica Tennant Productions in 1998, she has produced and directed  a large body of arts performance, for CBC Television and Bravo!FACT, including; a pairing of SwanS, and Shadow Pleasures, inspired by and collaborating with, author Michael Ondaatje. Shadow Pleasures set an all-time record at the 2005 Yorkton Film Festival with 7 Golden Sheaf Awards, including Best Director for Tennant, and Best of the Festival. In June, 2005 Veronica received her fifth honorary degree, from McGill University.

Veronica Tennant has written two books for young people, and she was inducted into Canada’s 2001 Walk of Fame. Her recent honours also include: Canada Council’s recipient of the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts; the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Banff Centre’s Nominee for Outstanding Alumnus in the Provincial Awards Celebrating Excellence. As an emerging feature filmmaker, she was invited to take part in Talent Lab – at the Toronto International Film Festival 2005.

In 2006, one of the studios in the Canada’s National Ballet School’s new Celia Franca Centre was named in her honour, a gift of Margaret and Wallace McCain, and the television portrait, Celia Franca: Tour de Force which she wrote and directed – telecast on Bravo! – was selected as the Best Dance Film of 2006 by the Toronto Star.  She is currently working on a film documentary of Danza Cuba. Veronica Tennant is Canada’s National Ambassador for  UNICEF which accorded her the Danny Kaye Award in 1999. The first dancer to be appointed to the Order of Canada as Officer in 1975, she was elevated for the range of her artistic achievements in 2004, to the rank of Companion, the country’s highest honour.