#DanceWeekend19 is 22 days away and today we highlight Kaeja d’Dance. Kaeja d’Dance will be peforming Saturday January 26th at 5:40pm.
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Can you tell us little bit about your company/collective/school?
Kaeja d’Dance is an award-winning contemporary dance company known for innovation, choreography, performance, outreach, site-specific work (“Best Site Specific Work” Globe and Mail), and groundbreaking community engagement projects (“I Love Dance Community Award” Canadian Dance Assembly). They thrive on developing professional performance platforms, collaborations with partners, peers and performers of all ages, while aiming to bridge the gap between professional artists and everyday people.
At the heart of Kaeja, are Co-Artistic Directors, Karen and Allen Kaeja, with over 140 works including commissions and performances, both here in Canada and abroad. Karen and Allen’s signature aesthetic is known for its intimacy, athletic intensity, sensual articulation, theatrical imagery and story-telling through personal and artistic resourcing of lives lived.
In addition to Kaeja’s professional performances, touring shows, residencies, commissions, and dance films, Kaeja also works to bring dance into communities through public space animations, community performance projects, inclusive exchanges with everyday people, appearances and dance education workshops.
What are you showing at DanceWeekend’19?
We will be showing two short pieces, the first by Karen Kaeja and the second by Allen Kaeja. Karen’s piece is a commission from the UK’s EDge Dance Company at the Place in England for their 2017 four-month European tour. This is the opening duet for a work called Consumed. This will be the first time the duet is performed in North America. Allen’s piece is “Close Proximity” remounted with permission from the School of the Toronto Dance Theatre on their graduating class.
Who are the performers/collaborators in this piece(s)?
Karen’s Piece: Mateo Galindo Torres and Caryn Chappell.
Allen’s Piece: Tanveer Alam, Morgyn Aronyk-Schell, Noah Blatt, Yiming Cai, Emily Fonda, Justin Fraser, Heather Jefferys, Ryan Kostyniuk, Kari Labrentz, Gwendolyn Mitchell, Chelsea Mulholland, Cloe Sandrelli, Lucie Schmidt and Claire Whitaker
Can you talk about your creative process? What inspires you?
Karen: What inspires me are the dancers who desire a duet from me. Who they are and what they bring to me in the studio becomes the gestation of material. As I gain knowledge about them and what my interests are then the work unfolds. I often come in with a miniature curiosity, and then a breath, a word, a piece of clothing, a hello, from the dancers in the studio, and that becomes part of the incubation laboratory for the work that unfolds. I do a lot of chatting in the beginning to get to know who they are at this moment in their lives.
Allen: The dancers are always my source of creation and I believe strongly in their creative brilliance. I am inspired by the kinetic resonance and impact expressed by the dancers within the choreographic development.
Please share your experience performing in a previous DanceWeekend and/or tell us what you are looking forward to at DanceWeekend’19?
We have done so many of them and it is because we love how they are a force for Ontario dance and it is always wonderful to have a fresh and lively crowd which is what happens at DW.
What is one surprising or interesting fact about your company/collective/school?
We are continuously driven by our passions and drive, following our hearts and impulses, and are now touring the world more than in the past decade. Our dedication to both each other and dance has provided us a rich resource for the future.
Do you have any up-coming performances/events you would like to share?
Our Wind Down Dance and Valentine’s Bash fall on the same day of February 8, 2019 and both take place at our studio home of 18 years, the Dovercourt House! Come start your Friday off right by winding down the week with informal performances highlighting the works-in-progress of seven choreographers: Michael Caldwell, Matthew Cuff, Sofí Gudiño, Allen Kaeja, Karen Kaeja, Krista Newey, Kirsten Sullivan
Then kick things up a notch and bring your dancing shoes to our Valentine’s Bash where we’ll break your heart and put it back together again with dancing, games, performances, a silent auction, and more. Send us off in style – we have an upcoming tour to Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong in March 2019!