Welcome to Dust and Soul Dance Projects

 Karen Kaeja (she/her) is a Tkaronto born Ashkenazi. An award-winning performer, choreographer, project instigator and mentor, she is “The mastermind behind Porch View Dances” Toronto Star. Karen develops platforms for collaborative relationships between dancers, everyday people and the body. Co-Artistic Director of Kaeja d’Dance with Allen Kaeja, she is in The Canadian Who’s Who and Dance in Canada Encylopedia. Her awards include the 2022 George Luscombe Mentorship Award, 2020 Dance Ontario Lifetime Achievement Award, CDA “I Love Dance” Community Award, and Paul D. Fleck Fellowship for Innovation. A finalist for the TAF Celebration of Cultural Life Award, the TAF Muriel Sherrin Award for International Achievement, NOW’s Best Local Choreographer and Best Dance Company, she is twice named one of NOW’s top 10 dance artists. A 7-time Dora Mavor Moore nominee, her work Crave received 4 Dora nominations, winning one. The heart of her research, choreography and critical writing for the past 30 years, concentrates on Touch, where the celebration of body memory as a living archive are in a continuous state of rebalancing. Commissioned and presented by performance series around the world, she collaborates and dances with many of Canada’s brilliant choreographers. www.kaeja.org 

Photo By Zahra Saleki

 Nickeshia Garrick is a settler on the stolen land of Tkaronto and has performed on this land for over 25 years. They are unapologetically a Black, Queer Artist who believes in the healing power of breath through raw emotion and movement. Nickeshia recieved their dance training at NYIDE ( New York Institution of Dance and Education), The National Ballet School, Toronto Dance Theatre and Simon Fraser University. Nickeshia is a Dora Mavor Moore winning and muti-nominated artist who holds a BFA in Dance from Simon Fraser University and is a movement teacher at the Toronto Film School. 

Photo By Kevin Jones

 Aria Evans is a queer, Toronto based, West Coast born award winning interdisciplinary artist who’s practice spans dance, theatre and film. As a public speaker, activist and creative leader Aria draws on their experiences of being mixed race. Aria is a certified Intimacy Coordinator and with a large-scale vision, collaboration is the departure point to the choreographic work that Aria creates under their company POLITICAL MOVEMENT. Advocating for inclusion and the representation of diversity, Aria uses their artistic practice to question the ways we can coexist together. www.politicalmovement.ca   

 Allison Cummings is a performer/choreographer/art maker, who produces her artistic work under the umbrella name Sore for Punching You.
She is based in Toronto, Canada. Her work has been presented at venues and festivals across Canada since 1996 including The Theatre Centre, Hysteria, Edgy Women/Montreal, Toronto Dance Theatre’s ‘Four at the Winch’, SummerWorks,  M:ST Performative Art Festival, 7a -11d, Canada Dance Festival, Fluid Festival, Moving Pictures Festival w/ Trinity Square Video, Older and Reckless, School of the Toronto Dance Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Porch View Dances, Bright Nights (Citadel et Cie) among many more. Internationally her work has been presented in Accra, Ghana, and Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand.
She has self produced her own multidisciplinary full length works, Quiver ’02, Clutch ’06, Devouring Lions ’09, Final Savage Land ’13 and Exhale ’18 at various venues in Toronto.   She is the recipient of multiple arts grants and awards including: The John D. and Susan P. Diekman Fellowship – California – 2012, The Laidlaw Foundation -2002, 2004 Toronto Arts Council -2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2019, Ontario Arts Council -2004, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2017, Ontario Arts Council International Residency Grant – 2010, Canada Council of the Arts - 2008, 2010, 2013, 2018, Canada Council Travel Grant – 2008, 2011, Chalmers Professional Development – 2010, Recipient of The Toronto Emerging Artist Award in Dance – 2000, K.M Hunter Award Shortlisted – 2006 and 2008. She has recently been appointed Artistic Director of Moonhorse Dance Theatre, an organization that focuses on presenting opportunities for established dance artists over the age of 45. 

 SHARON DIGENOVA is a Production Stage Manager and award- winning Lighting  Designer, who began her career in a Broadway touring house - working in all aspects of  technical theatre, on numerous Tony Award winning productions. Throughout her  career, She has worked in many capacities in a multitude of disciplines – designing for  dance, theatre, multi-media, circus and freak shows, as well as stage managing music  venues, producing dance, running her own venue, and touring internationally to over  350 cities (several times over) in more than 30 countries throughout North & South  America, Europe, Australia, Asia and the Far East. She has collaborated with scores of  National artists, ranging from The Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and Canada’s internationally  acclaimed Holy Body Tattoo to Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes. She has also Lit  numerous international artists including multi award winning dancer Patricia Guerrero  and Flamenco master, Joaquin Grilo and Production Managed numerous festivals  including, the IABD Conference and Showcase (International Association of Blacks in  Dance), and…Toronto’s International Tap Festival. Sharon also spends much of her year  volunteering with animals in need. Her Company Holly’s Hope, has been producing fund  raising events to bring awareness to, and raise funds for animals since 2012.  

Christina Litt Belch is a composer, contemporary dance artist, choreographer, musician,

and teacher based in Toronto, Ontario. She has trained at various renowned schools in Canada and the United States such as the Alberta Ballet School and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. Christina has worked as both a composer and performer for dance: made in canada - inTO focus, Battery Dance Festival, Expect Theatre’s Beats +

Intentions, and the SummerWorks Performance Festival. As well, she has presented her work at the Festival de Danse Contemporaine de Sherbrooke and has worked as a

rehearsal director at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre for a piece choreographed by Pulga Muchochoma. Christina is now a collaborator with Kaeja d’Dance, PulgaDance, and ZahraMoves. In 2020 she founded Litt Dance Collective, which aims to create

holistic works by melding musical and choreographic research.

Photo by Arlo Filazek