RECENT PROJECTS

Porch View Dances (PVD) is Real People Dancing in Real Spaces. PVD is an award-winning community dance festival that engages everyday people as creators, storytellers and performers – many of whom have never danced before. Audience members travel from house to house to see new dance works created by professional choreographers and performed by everyday folk on porches, front yards, and driveways. PVD was founded by Karen Kaeja and developed with Allen Kaeja.

8-COUNT Short Dance Film Series (part of Fall for Dance North 2023) featured 8 selected short films by national and international creators, including Karen and Allen Kaeja’s Challah, exploring Holocaust ancestry's impact.

Karen collaborated in the creative process of a newly commissioned duet by Dust and Soul Dance Projects for Tara Butler and Nickeshia Garrick, alongside acclaimed choreographers Allison Cummings, Aria Evans, and Nickeshia Garrick. These remarkable works premiered on June 16th, 2023, at Kitchener's Registry Theatre, showcasing the profound artistic vision of these talented femme artists. The performances encompass themes of life and death, peace and balance, motherhood, and the celebration of femme resilience, taking the audience on an evocative journey.

Hanna Kiel was commissioned to create a new lifeDUET for Karen and Allen. With this new duet Lasterday, we explore how two individuals carry different memories and perceptions of the same events from their shared past. This concept delves into various aspects of their relationship, including their sense of timeline, emotional impacts, and interactions throughout their life journey, all through the lens of how they remember and interpret their shared history.

Karen and Allen premiered the duet at Older + Reckless in November 2023, with plans to take the duet on tour in BC in 2024.

As part of DCD’s Discover Diaglogues, Allen Kaeja discussed his article “Moving Memories: Kaeja Explores the Holocaust through Dance and Film”.

Grounded in memory, Karen Kaeja’s TouchX, and Allen Kaeja and Bruce Barton’s I am the Child of… (a collaboration between Kaeja d’Dance and Vertical City Performance), investigate the complexity of our lived experience. Community, perspective, and augmented reality technology creates two evocative worlds in this double bill show.

In Case of Emergency is a film conceived by Karen and Allen Kaeja, directed by Allen, and co-curated with Aria Evans. This new film celebrates the mosaic of our community by highlighting the history and identity of 18 passionate dance artists. Each artist improvised movement of their informed practices inspired by a transformative moment in their childhood that they have been touched by.

Slipping is a new dance film that explores an intimate journey of four women's lives, as they slip between emotional and psychological torment. The characters coexist through their unfolding stories in a century old mansion. Their only link to reality is each other. Conceived and filmed in rural Quebec with an all female team, co-directors Roshanak Jaberi and Karen Kaeja set out to merge their artistic voices.

The 2022 iteration of our beloved festival, featuring ‘real people dancing in real spaces’! An interactive treasure hunt had senses and imagination soaring throughout Seaton Village. Engaging with live and virtual performances choreographed by professional dance artists, experiences of live dances, augmented reality (AR) and mini dance films featured the heartwarming stories of everyday folk.

Karen, Allen, and Nickeshia Garrick travelled to Oregon in January 2023 for a performance in the Smith Fine Arts Series.

this place is a new duet commissioned by Mateo Galindo Torres for Karen Kaeja. The hybrid theatre film of this place was created in Fall 2021 and screened by Citadel+ Compagnie.

A site-specific project featuring Dance Film and Augmented Reality in two Toronto laneways as part of ArtworxTO: Toronto's Year of Public Art 2021 – 2022.

PVD10 was a virtual event that celebrated ten years of "real people dancing in real spaces"! Led by Curator and Production Director Michael Caldwell.

Virtual workshops in which participants collaboratively created new movement experiences based on personal stories.