lifeDUETs

This extraordinary couple, still dancing with unparalled passion in their 60s, bring their profound connection and award-winning artistry to the stage. Karen and Allen Kaeja’s lifeDUETs delve into the complexities of their lifelong relationship through physical, imagistic, and deeply touching performances celebrating the universal qualities of everyday life with socially relevant themes. They are a celebration of love and dance. Their performances will leave you inspired and moved.

Many duets have toured across the world through Canada and to Spain, India, England, Japan, Mexico, Venezuela and Israel. They have been performed since the year 2000 and are available for touring as a full program or individually. Past lifeDUETs have been created by Hanna Kiel, Tedd Robinson, Benjamin Kamino, Peter Bingham, Claudia Moore, Marie-Josée Chartier and the Kaejas. Upcoming lifeDUET commissions include choreographer Aria Evans with touring being planned for 2026-2027.

  • "They’ve been called a “power couple,” “go-getters” and “the coolest couple on the dance scene.” But no phrase quite encompasses the extraordinary range of ways in which the Kaejas engage with dance and each other."

    Michael Crabb, Toronto Star

  • “Here, ladies and gentleman, is a middle-aged couple still hot for each other. That alone is worth the price of admission. You think for once you really shouldn't be watching this. But you can't tear your eyes away.”

    Deirdre Kelly, Critics at Large

  • "As dancers, they are striking to look at – Allen has a sturdy, imposing largeness that’s infused with warmth and gentleness. Karen is fiercely beautiful with hard features and a mass of thick burgundy hair. When she dances, her reserve turns into something almost violently intense.”

    Martha Schabas, Globe and Mail

  • "When I notice that Allen has rested his hand on Karen’s knee, I find myself thinking of the likes of Kahlo and Rivera, Plath and Hughes, Stein and Toklas – artistic couples in which a profound affinity for a shared form proved transformative."

    Martha Schabas, Globe and Mail

  • "A meditation on emotional polarities of a long-term partnership are, in fact, not oppositional but cut from the same cloth. The tempos mutually conveyed by the Kaejas reverberate through the theatre. Each work leaves us with the resonant pulses of their partnership."

    Emma Doran, Dance Current

  • "Their merging feels part of their very DNA - reverberating at the cellular level."

    Emma Doran, Dance Current

  • "Karen and Allen Kaeja disconnect the eyes from the mind, and re-wire them to the heart."

    Calgary Herald

  • "A profound exchange, I witnessed the ephemeral nature of life."

    Hanna Kiel on the creative process

  • "Wonderful piece, filled with swagger, joy and the multifaceted complexity of relationships. A joy to watch such seasoned creators connect.”

    Audience member

  • "What a fine piece of work! We were moved and amused by so many moments of self-recognition. It is a great artistic achievement to find the “universal” in such personal moments. To communicate so much through emblematic movement and gesture – what a triumph!”

    Steven Bush

  • "Karen and Allen Kaeja disconnect the eyes from the mind, and re-wire them to the heart."

    Calgary Herald

  • "Pushing the boundaries of contemporary whacks complacency right out the door."

    Deirdra Kelly, Critics At Large

  • "In perhaps the most arresting moment of the work, Allen lifts up a back corner of the paper floor, altering the landscape of the stage by creating a vertical plane. With this paper massif as her backdrop, Karen dances a captivating solo in which the audience, at last, sees the virtuosity we are accustomed to when watching her dance. Her movement is fluid and easy even when she is gyrating her hips or convulsing in heaves. Dancing without the gaze of Allen (he’s still under the paper), she gains a sense of freedom."

    Emma Doran, Dance Current

Lasterday

With the Kaeja’s newest lifeDUET, 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. This is a commissioning series for Karen and Allen.

Karen and Allen Kaeja have recently toured for 3 weeks in British Columbia with a BCMAS New Creation Residency and performances of their lifeDUETs - Lasterday and 25 to 1, plus In Case of Fire community integrated work, in PORT MCNEILL, SOINTULA, and 'NAMGIS NATION/ALERT BAY. They also performed Lasterday at Dancing on the Edge (DOTE). The lifeDUETs BC Tour was initiated by BCMAS (BC Movement Arts Society), and funded by the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts Touring.

Lasterday premiered November 2023 at Harbourfront Centre - Older and Reckless.

with

In 1998, Karen and Allen Kaeja embarked on lifeDUETs – a duet-commissioning series. Variations of this critically acclaimed program toured across the world. In 2015, a new program of lifeDUETs was created for Kaeja d’Dance’s 25th anniversary. Including commissions from incomparable choreographers Tedd Robinson and Benjamin Kamino, this program is a celebration of family, of company, of love and partnership.

The work of Benjamin Kamino is a set of rules, a stage, and a practicum for Allen and Karen Kaeja into their own lives. In sequence Karen and Allen take turns imagining the dances alive yet hidden (available yet invisible) inside the body of their partner. They perform these dances with eyes closed for their partner who bars themselves from seeing either by closing the eyes or maneuvering away. Through co-working states of being-with/without-seeing and imagining co-embodiment they form representations which articulate the sacred history of two lovers captured within the continuum of lives-lived-shared. This dance at its root is made of time -- of time given to togetherness.

25 to 1

In 1998, Karen and Allen Kaeja embarked on lifeDUETs – a duet-commissioning series. Variations of this critically acclaimed program toured across the world. In 2015, a new program of lifeDUETs was created for Kaeja d’Dance’s 25th anniversary. Including commissions from incomparable choreographers Tedd Robinson and Benjamin Kamino, this program is a celebration of family, of company, of love and partnership.

Tedd Robinson’s work, 25 to 1, is seeded in 25 positions of tenderness. But living in love for 25 years requires many states – this work portrays caring, but also the reality of long-term commitment. 25 to 1 is an intimate rendering of living life together in dance, the business and the art, sometimes invisibly supported by each other, other times directly in opposition, but always working within the safe shelter of a kiss.

Karen and Allen Kaeja have recently toured for 3 weeks in British Columbia with a BCMAS New Creation Residency and performances of their lifeDUETs - Lasterday and 25 to 1, plus In Case of Fire community integrated work, in PORT MCNEILL, SOINTULA, and 'NAMGIS NATION/ALERT BAY. They also performed Lasterday at Dancing on the Edge (DOTE).

The lifeDUETs BC Tour is initiated by BCMAS (BC Movement Arts Society), and funded by the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts Touring.