22 days left until DanceWeekend!
Our countdown to DanceWeekend’22 continues with Karen Kaeja / Kaeja d’Dance! The virtual DanceWeekend film screening is happening Friday July 15th at 7pm. Register for the event HERE.
Kaeja.org
FB: @karen.kaeja
IG: @karenkaeja
TW: @KaejadDance
Karen Kaeja is an award-winning performer, choreographer, project instigator and mentor. “The mastermind behind Porch View Dances” Toronto Star, she develops platforms for collaborative relationships between dancers and everyday people. Co-Artistic Director of Kaeja d’Dance with Allen Kaeja she is in The Canadian Who’s Who, with awards including the Dance Ontario Lifetime Achievement Award, CDA “I Love Dance” Community Award, and Paul D. Fleck Fellowship for innovation. She was a finalist for the TAF Celebration of Cultural Life Award, the TAF Muriel Sherrin Award, NOW’s Best Local Choreographer and twice for NOW’s Best Dance Company, plus 7 Dora Mavor Moore nominations. Commissioned and presented by performance series around the world, she continues to collaborate and dance with many of Canada’s brilliant choreographers. www.kaeja.org
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself/your company?
Kaeja is the umbrella for all our creative adventures and collaborations. I continue to love performing and being in process – my own and others.
What will you be sharing at DanceWeekend’22?
uneasy – a dance film made during the pandemic
How has the pandemic shifted your work as a professional dance artist?
COVID has been a time. the craving to deepen relationships with the artists I work with has intensified and become even more meaningful. Always an improvisor, I thrive on ‘pivoting’ and yet it has been wild and exhausting.
Please share what you are most looking forward to at Dance Ontario’s return to live performances at DanceWeekend?
sustenance and inspiration for the future of the arts in Ontario
Do you have any up-coming performances/workshops/events you would like to share?
– my pandemic solo film Clearing will be LIVE at TIFF Bell Lightbox in June as part of The Female Eye Film Festival.
– collaboration with Roshanak Jaberi for Slipping https://www.jaberidt.com/portfolio_page/slipping/
– Kitchen Dances is a series of 5 films in editing mode and is a long awaited dream project in the making with filmmaker extraordinaire Moze Mossanen and composers Phil Strong and Laurel MacDonald
– Silence is a short solo film editing mode in collaboration with Drew Berry
– Sue Smith, is launching her new song. I we danced the night away under the moonlight last November for the film. YOU COME CALLING premieres online – May 28 @8 pm [EST]
Shot in the countryside, Tessa and Daniel have created a moving picture of Sue’s new music YOU COME CALLING, from Tonight We Sail.Directed by Tessa Fleming with DOP Daniel Grant, CSC. Featuring Singer/Songwriter Sue Smith and Dancer/Choreographer, Karen Kaeja with the musical brilliance of the Potion Kings. You are invited to join us for the online Premiere – meet the Key Artists, watch the film for the first time and join the Q & A.
To register, please send your name in an email to [email protected] with “Calling” in the Subject Line
In 1 or 2 sentences, what does dance mean to you?
ephemerality, life, breath, small life dance