Neighbourhood stories told through dance
Porch View Dances turns everyday home into stage for families of all kinds
It’s a dance series that began with a glance out of a livingroom window.
The performances take place in what are usually private spaces: front yards and porches in the Seaton Village neighbourhood of Toronto.
And in the seven years since it began, Porch View Dances has widened its reach to other neighbourhoods, cities and participants of varying abilities.
But it began in this slice of the Annex, bounded roughly by Bloor, Dupont, Christie and Bathurst Sts., when performer and choreographer Karen Kaeja looked out the window of her living room and noticed neighbours going in and out of their house, animatedly chatting on their porch, and imagined it happening in dance form.
“Before I knew it, we were applying for grants and Trillium Foundation funding, starting this project in our area in Seaton Village,” says Kaeja, artistic director of Kaeja d’Dance with her husband Allen Kaeja, a choreographer and dance film director.
It started, Allen says, as a way to tell stories about the neighbourhood by pairing the people living in the houses with professional choreographers.
The porches were chosen as an expression of the lives of the participants; the fact there was a cost saving in not having to rent a venue was “just an added thing,” Karen says.
It’s more about the idea of the home as “a venue where life occurs,” she adds.
So once participants have been chosen — there is now a waiting list — the choreographers spend about an hour just observing the family or group, watching how they move and interact, and putting that into the choreography.
“Last year, one of the families Karen and I worked with, the older daughter pulled out her shopping wagon of all her toys and started setting it up, and we said, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s brilliant,’ and it became part of the piece,” Allen says.
In another case, a participant broke her foot, so the dance became a piece called Crutch that incorporated her crutches.
The performers don’t need dance experience, and they don’t even need a porch of their own to dance on. They do need to commit to 20 hours of rehearsal and a week of performances.
“We are very, very welcoming to anybody,” Karen says. “If you want to be involved in a creative process; to delve into the stories within your lives, within the household; to have this incredible experience with a creator at the helm, we are interested in you.”
This year, for the first time, some of the dancers come from outside Seaton Village, and people of diverse abilities are included.
One of the groups includes two participants in wheelchairs and one who uses American Sign Language. They will perform yoga, wheelchair dance, aerial circus and “contact dance.”
Another group of four housemates have “multi-exceptionalities,” described as learning differently from other people.
The third team, father and son Jim and Owen Adams, are repeat performers who are exploring “the Indigenous values of truth, love and respect.”
“We’re such a beautifully unique society and culture, especially here in Toronto,” Allen says.
The aim is to present the porches “in their natural state,” so you won’t see things like professional lighting or stage rigging. Garage lights might be turned on to illuminate a shadowy area.
Despite the modest production values, the project “costs quite a bit of money,” Karen says, including hiring a staff member to help with administration, paying choreographers, renting studio space for rehearsals, insurance, marketing and policing of closed streets.
Canadian Heritage and TD Canada Trust provide some funding, and the Kaejas are exploring other sources to keep the series going.
Community groups and local businesses provide volunteers who act as tour guides for the hour-long performances, leading the audience from porch to porch. Along the way, professional dancers perform “vignettes” and, at the end, the whole audience is invited to join in a simple group dance.
The Kaejas say they get several hundred spectators each night from all over the GTA.
And they have taken Porch View Dances to other parts of the city, including Etobicoke and Jane-Finch, and country, including Moncton, N.B., Ottawa and Kitchener, Ont.
“It’s very inclusive and it’s very accessible,” Allen says. “We look at the world as our neighbour, which is who we are, especially as Torontonians and Canadians.”
This is the first instalment of On Location, a series about art that thrives in creative spaces.
Porch View Dances takes place July 18 to 22 in Seaton Village. See kaeja.org for information. Twitter: @realityeo