The shade from the tree canopy in Kiwanis Park provided much-appreciated relief from the heat on my morning walk with dancer and choreographer Tara Butler. The crunch of gravel under our feet and the buzz of cicadas formed the soundtrack in the green space that Butler sees as an artistic playground.
“I feel like there’s a story along this trail, and I don’t exactly know what it is,” Butler said. “This park invites many different people from different walks of life.”
Butler sees the potential for the park to be animated through dance and storytelling. She envisions a collaborative event that celebrates the river, the trees and the grasshoppers along the trail and invites audience members to see the space differently. She has begun to explore these ideas through a collaboration with Waterlution where she combined dance and tech to create site-specific GPS-activated performance.
Dance found Butler early; at three years old, she took classes in tap, jazz and acro, but her love for ballet came later. A friend from soccer asked Butler to join her at an audition for the National Ballet School (NBS) in their preparatory junior division when she was nine and, despite not having a background in ballet, Butler was accepted, although her friend was not.
“The friendship lasted, and my friend ended up on the Canadian women’s soccer team,” Butler said.
At ten years old, Butler was accepted into the full-time program at NBS and completed the rest of her schooling at that institution while also honing her dance skills, practicing three to five hours every day.
“I feel really grateful that I was able to focus my energy on something I felt so passionate about,” Butler said. “I knew I was in the right place to get the training that I needed to make a career out of [dance].”
It was the combination of the precision and imagination of the classical form of ballet that appealed to Butler. She also cited her first teacher, Laurel Toto, as being extremely influential in igniting her love of the art form.
Butler began dancing professionally before she graduated high school. When Butler was in grade 12, the National Ballet of Canada needed a dancer for the corps de ballet in their run of the Nutcracker, and Butler’s teachers recommended her for the job. Butler’s talent for picking up choreography allowed her to learn her parts quickly.
“I wasn’t the best dancer in my class, but I was definitely one of the fastest, and I could retain information,” Butler said. “I think I had a special performance quality…so artistically [my dancing] was interesting.”
After graduating, Butler apprenticed with The National Ballet of Canada, where she honed her skills through performance, but she found working with such a big company overwhelming and she struggled with disordered eating.
“I felt very self-conscious and I wasn’t really able to work as hard as I would have liked,” Butler said. “I don’t think I ever presented my best self.”
Butler was able to find a healthier balance by working at the smaller Alberta Ballet company out of Calgary for two years. From there, she joined Ballet Jörgen in Toronto and was hired for the first time as a principal soloist. She danced with that company for 16 years and enjoyed a highly collaborative working relationship with Bengt Jörgen, the founder and artistic director. Their version of Romeo and Juliet toured the country and even took Butler overseas, where she guest danced with Hong Kong Ballet.
“We also did a lot of contemporary work…all these amazing Canadian choreographers that we had the opportunity to work with and create new work,” Butler said. “I think that’s where my excitement for choreography [came from].”
At 36, Butler retired from professional ballet and turned her focus towards family. She and her husband moved from Toronto to Kitchener to raise their children in a smaller community. While Butler feels embraced and supported by Kitchener, it was a hard decision to leave the artistic community she was part of in Toronto.
When she first moved to Kitchener, her focus was on being a mom, but Butler soon felt the call of her artistic side.
“Over the last five years, I’ve dove headfirst into my creativity, my dance projects and choreography and performing too,” Butler said. “I didn’t know that in my late forties, early fifties I’d be performing as much as I am.”
Butler formed Dust and Soul Dance in 2021 and presented an evening of original work as part of Dance Takes Berlin, subsequently winning a Waterloo Region Arts Award for the piece. She has been working for the past four years on choreographing and developing It Falls With The Rain, a work featuring five dancers that explore the hidden journey of plastic in our waterways. The piece will have its world premiere October 16 and 17 at the Registry Theatre.
“I think the only way to really learn your craft is by doing it, so say yes to projects,” Butler said. “Follow your instincts, work with other people, create your own projects, and go see as much [art] as you can.”
“I feel like I’ve created my little circle of friends [in Kitchener-Waterloo],” Butler said. “And that’s really what home is.”
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