Our DanceWeekend’24 Artist Feature is Karen Kaeja of Kaeja d’Dance as apart of our online film screenings!
Friday, January 26th, 2024 at 7pm VIRTUALLY.
About Karen Kaeja
Karen Kaeja (she/her) is an Ashkenazi, Tkaronto born, award-winning choreographer, project instigator, performer, mentor and educator. The heart of her research, creation, and writing concentrates on the agency and challenges of Touch. She develops platforms for collaborative relationships between dancers and everyday people. Karen is in The Canadian Who’s Who with awards including the George Luscombe Mentorship Award, Dance Ontario’s Lifetime Achievement Award, CDA “I Love Dance” Community Award and Paul D. Fleck Fellowship. A Finalist for the TAF Celebration of Cultural Life Award, TAF Muriel Sherrin Award, NOW’s Best Local Choreographer and twice for Best Dance Company, Karen’s nominations include the 2023 Eldred Family Dance Award, CDA “I Love Dance” Innovation Award, and 7 Dora Mavor Moore nominations, winning one. Her dance films and featured roles have been screened in over 400 festivals worldwide. Co-Artistic Director of Kaeja d’Dance with Allen Kaeja, she is commissioned and presented by performance series globally. She collaborates with many of Canada’s brilliant choreographers. www.kaeja.org
What will you be sharing at DanceWeekend’24?
Mist Me is a short dance film that I improvised at various times throughout a full year of the pandemic. I love that early morning mist where I don’t quite know what the day and this life, will bring, while moving forward on a day to day unfolding.
How has the pandemic shifted your work as a professional dance artist?
i have begun to choose more specifically what I do. Life feels more fragile and I feel more grate
What interests you about film as a medium and how does if differ from a live performance?
Film is everlasting impression of an ephemeral form. It is a different and beautiful entry into the creators mind and vision. It is a way to communicate in 3D.
Please share what you are most looking forward to at DanceWeekend?
I love Dance Weekend. The city shines for this weekend.
What does dance mean to you?
A lifetime commitment to my artistic practice means passion, urgency and deep care in a constant oscillating measure. It means learning about the world through a lens that is fluid. It means questioning myself in both intellectual and physical modalities that sometimes unite and sometimes disagree. A lifetime in reality seems unattainable as I feel so in the moment all the time. Space within my long lived practice is becoming about simplicity, efficiency, deep joy and how all of this resonates within. (from Karen Kaeja)
———-
Stay Up to Date with Karen Kaeja at their social media links below: