Between seasons with the New Dance Group of Canada, Amelia pursued studies in New York City at the Graham School. Then David Earle staged a concert with Peter Randazzo, rehearsing in Beatty’s studio. In the ensuing months, Patricia Beatty offered her school and company as the base for a new company founded by Beatty, Randazzo and Earle. Toronto Dance Theatre was born. Amelia performed in the Toronto Dance Theatre debut season at Toronto Workshop Productions and would dance with TDT from 1968 to 1973.

Patricia Beatty: "Those were heady years, great years. We were dead serious about the work, the sets, the music, and we were producing work that was among the best emerging from the 60s. Trudeau was in the world spotlight. It was a period in which Canada was emerging into a new understanding of its own culture. It's in the roots now, and will never be erased... They didn’t want us to be so serious. "We mean to intensify, not distract," we kept saying."We are not entertainers." I eventually grew heartily sick of it and by the time TDT was (located on) Lombard St., wrote to the Globe and Mail and the Star, saying that we were artists, not entertainers and didn’t belong in an Entertainment section. Toronto wasn't the boonies, how about doing it like the New York Times and devoting space to Arts and Culture?! The Globe responded that my letter was most timely, they'd just decided to call it the Arts section. The Star wrote to reassure me that they thought I was a terrific entertainer!"

Jennifer Mascall: "I was 15 the first time I saw Amelia. I’d got somehow myself to the Toronto Dance Theatre and someone had invited me to a party. It was in the 70s, and this whole tribe of wild hippies came into the party and it was all the dancers from Toronto Dance Theatre. When I first saw Amelia I couldn't tell if she was a man or a woman; it was just like creatures."