Brave enough to be seen: She's 52, queer, a mother — and now she's bringing that all onstage

Sara Porter is a choreographer originally from Halifax. She shares her reflections on ageing and improvisation in The Move: Season II.

"Dancing — as well as demanding great physical prowess — is a feat of imagination." When I read that in Sara Porter's year in review reflection for CBC Arts, I stopped for a moment to ponder that line. We place so much value on the physicality of dance — lean bodies bending, stretching, twisting, jumping — that it can be easy to ignore how movement engages the mind.

Improvisation I love because it engages my imagination with my body at the same time in a very alive and active way.- Sara Porter

In response to aging, over the past few years Sara has shifted her practice to focus on dance improvisation. In contemporary dance, improvisation is the process of spontaneously creating movement in the moment that one is dancing. While that may seem antithetical to the structured pre-planned vision that many would consider choreography to be, dance improvisation is a technique and is practised as a professional form.

In this episode, watch as she walks walks into our studio with an intention and moves her body in the way it wants to move in that moment.  You can see Sara's creativity on full display in continuous active creation. I loved watching her dance — not in the past, not how I had seen her before in her stage shows, but in the present, in this moment. Improvisation and aging didn't just change the way she danced — its inherent vulnerability empowered her to the stories she wanted to tell.

"I feel brave enough now in my life to let myself be seen and I like to think that it offers something to the world to be brave enough to do that."

Follow Sara Porter here.

Eight of Canada's top choreographers share their astonishing moves — and the incredible stories behind why they dance in The Move: Season II. Find out more and stream the full series now on CBC Gem.