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TOPICS
1. LIFE IS A COLLABORATIVE ART
Veronica Tennant speaks compellingly about her commitment to COLLABORATION - the key to her diversified life-careers and stature as a Canadian icon. Astonishingly, she has translated her talent and skills as a star of the international ballet stage, to an award-winning director/producer and writer in the worlds of television, theatre and film. Equally acclaimed as a Filmmaker, Television Host, Stage-personality and Lecturer, she gives an engaging and candid telling of her personal challenges in tough collective arenas. Leading by example, Veronica Tennant shares her essentials for optimum performance and excellence.”No apologies about being a Leader - the strength of collaboration is actually fueled by the force of independence.”
2. THE POWER OF LIVING IN THE PRESENT TENSE: HOW TO RE-INVENT ONESELF WHILE INVESTING IN OUR CHILDREN
How can we tackle CHANGE? Veronica Tennant shares and applies her experiences from her various career-paths. Passionately committed to Youth, she addresses the importance of encouraging bravery and imagination, while listening to and inspiring our younger generations to take command of their individuality and potential.“CHANGE is the order of the day. Today is tomorrow.”
3. RAISING THE BARRE AND VAULTING THE HURDLES – OVERCOMING THE ROAD-BLOCKS
Veronica Tennant’s perseverance and tenacity are legendary. Throughout her first career as Prima Ballerina of The National Ballet of Canada she was sidelined with major injuries, including four herniated discs - one at the beginning of her career - a knee operation mid career, where she had to learn to walk again before she could return to dance - and a post career hip replacement. She speaks movingly of how she grappled with the physical and emotional pain, turning the negative into the positive with such examples as the writing of her two books, exploring her transition options, and becoming a mother."Learning lessons which transform what could have been failures - into successes - is what life is all about!”
VERONICA TENNANT, C.C.
Prima Ballerina, Producer-Director, Writer, Host
Veronica Tennant can truly be called a Renaissance Woman. As Prima Ballerina with the National Ballet of Canada, Veronica Tennant won hearts and accolades as a dancer of extraordinary versatility and dramatic power. For 25 years, she danced on stages around the world with such luminaries as Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Tennant has re-invented herself as an award-winning producer/director and filmmaker while expanding on her gifts as a communicator, performer and author. Her meteoric rise in film and television has garnered her several Gemini Awards, and the prestigious International Emmy Award. Since forming Veronica Tennant Productions in 1998, she has conceived, directed and produced an extensive body of work as independent filmmaker, including Shadow Pleasures a collaboration with Michael Ondaatje, which won an unprecedented 7 Golden Sheaf Awards at the Yorkton Film Festival including Best of Festival, and Celia Franca: Tour de Force. In 2007, Tennant choreographed the theatrical adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, a collaboration between the Royal Shakespearean Company opening in Stratford, England, and the National Arts Centre performing in Ottawa. Her recent successes include Vida y Danza, Cuba which aired on CTV/Bravo! –and was invited to the 2008 Havana Film Festival receiving rave reviews; and Finding Body & Soul, a documentary for CBC Television about the creation of a play by Judith Thompson commissioned by Dove on beauty and aging.
Tennant has been widely honoured as a role model and icon for her far-reaching contribution to Canada’s arts and culture. She has five honorary degrees from the Universities of: Brock, York, Simon Fraser, McGill, and University of Toronto. In 2004, she was given the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts by the Canada Council and was awarded the prestigious Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement. 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, this country’s highest honour.
Passionately committed to youth and the development of potential, Tennant has published two children’s books with McClelland and Stewart, and since 1992 has served as a National Ambassador for UNICEF. A 2001 inductee of Canada’s Walk of Fame, Tennant, is a much sought-after narrator and effervescent host.
To hear Veronica Tennant speak, is to appreciate why the Peter Gentile biography production on CBC Television was entitled the Life and Times of Veronica Tennant: Renaissance Woman. With candour and humour, Tennant gives engaging and vivacious presentations on widespread topics illustrated by the tumbles and triumphs - risks and rewards of a public life. Veronica Tennant is an inspiring Canadian, and a “great communicator.”
COMMENTS FROM AUDIENCES
"Deeply Inspiring…"
Audrey O'Brien, Clerk of the House of Commons
