I didn't start to dance until I was almost 25. Up until then I had lived a varied and rowdy life. Born and raised in Ottawa I spent a lot of time in and around Barry's Bay Ontario where I was taught to hunt and fish by my Grandfather. When I was 19, I left Ontario for Yellowknife in the NWT. Parts of Yellowknife were like the wild west back then in 1969 and I had the time of my life working and partying. Sometimes I worked on trucks, drove trucks, painted signs, designed paper forms for the government, was a mechanic, a welder and for a time was the town machinist. I also explored and grew to love Canada's North.

Eventually, though, it came time to come south and go to university to study music and English and to dance. In Yellowknife I had met a woman, Tassallie Dent, who gave me the dance bug one which never went away. My first teacher was Elizabeth Langley in Ottawa. Elizabeth choreographed the first show that I danced in, June 1975. My dog also appeared in part of that show. Never perform with your own dog!
 

From Ottawa, I went to Halifax to Dalhousie University where I continued music and English studies and also continued dance, studying with Pat Richards. I stayed in Halifax two years and during the last eight months there helped form the Halifax Dance Co-op Dance Company. Sara Shelton was the Artistic Director and I was the administrator, truck driver, technician and even choreographed a piece. We toured the province in the summer of 1977 and it was after that tour that I decided to go to Toronto to try and get in the Danny Grossman Dance Company which at that time hadn't even really formed. Had I known how unlikely it was that I could simply go and do what I wanted in dance I might never have left Halifax. But I was naïve and very, very lucky. Three months after arriving in Toronto I was onstage with the Danny Grossman Company in NYC. That was the start of a wonderful ten year career with that company. I danced all the roles I wanted all over the world. It was a great time.

I started choreographing in Toronto sometime around 1980 and spent two years making my first piece, After Godot. Next came Celtic Night which earned me, in 1987, my first of four seasons at Toronto's Premiere Dance Theatre. My time with the Grossman Company ended then and my own company was formed in 1988. That summer I was the Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award recipient and a very happy person.

The Randy Glynn Dance Project went on to tour Canada several times and appeared at numerous festivals and galas. I made over 20 dances and set pieces on Companies in Ohio, Vancouver, and Dublin. In 1994 the Canada Council yanked all my funding a few weeks before the start of our new fiscal year and shortly afterwards the Ontario Arts Council bravely followed suit. That pretty well finished off my company but I did go on to choreograph, mostly on own resources, several more dances including Mr. Pinhead - The Life and Times of a 6 8 Ballroom Dancer, one of my personal favourites and a dance duet of Hamlet.

In 1990 I purchased property in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley and for the past three years have been running a summer dance program there with my partner Pamela Grundy, who is Associate Director of the Danny Grossman Company. The unique program offers private technique classes and an enrollment limited to six at a time. The repertoire is very demanding, especially with the small enrollment. It takes place in a 125 year old church by the sea and the course is attracting students from all over North America.

In February 1992 our son Sam was born and in February 1997 our daughter Maggie-Rene (pronounced reen) was born. Sam's goal is the NHL. Maggie-Rene, we're not sure about her, but she really likes to dance.

I had and continue to have a good dance career both as a dancer and a choreographer. Though I was sorry to lose my company I know that I have made a good body of unique work and will continue to contribute as a creator, teacher, performer, and commentator on the business.

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Capricciosa (1988)

World Premiere, Eric Harvie Theatre
July 13, 14, 15 & 16, 1988

Choreography: Randy Glynn
Music: Dietrich Buxtehude La Capricciosa (BuxWV 250)
Costume Design: Pasha
Sound Engineer: Wendy York

The 1988 Festival Dance Company 
in Capricciosa.
Photo: Monte Greenshields