Fruit: dancing keeps Sara Porter honest And showcases her sensually rare and genuine goofiness

REVIEW by Drew Rowsome

5 Oct 2021 - Photos of Mister Sister courtesy of publicist

"Eve’s biblical apple and the shame inherent in sexuality is my oldest story of my own cultural heritage," says Sara Porter in describing the inspiration for her piece Getting to Know Your Fruit, premiering as part of the Fall for Dance North festival. 

"I have been immersed in doing memoir the past few years. The most memorable stories always involve my body in some way. My stories have shaped my understanding of who I am, emotionally, psychologically and also physically. My body lives its own history. I notice my body comes to resemble people I spend time with – we are not so separate from each other. I recognize – in myself - vocal inflections of my mother, or a turn of phrase from my ex-girlfriend, or notice that my hand moves like my best friend. Our bodies are porous and absorb elements of life around us. I am interested in exploring how my body is an artefact of that life. Plus, after having kids, I feel I have more in common with the tree in my front yard. My kids are the fruit of me. And so is my art."

Grappling with the concept of, and the desire to create, memoir is part of what drove the creation of Getting to Know Your Fruit. "I realized that I couldn’t tell the story of my life, without telling the story of my body’s life. So I started writing stories about my body’s history, and researching the form of memoir itself. It’s a slippery beast. I find that the voice of a personal story changes over time – through repeated tellings - so no story is ever really definitive. I loved learning how the categories of 'memoir' and the categories of ‘fruit’ had surprising exceptions and were not quite as sturdy as I’d thought. The title is in the present continuous tense – it’s a project without an end.  Themes of miscategorization. The inter-related of artforms. Coming out for the second time in my life. Seeing my body as a biological fruit of the earth. Searching to know myself. Plus, I think the word 'fruit' is funny. It’s a great word: rhymes with shoot, moot, hoot and toot."

The festival describes Porter's work as "ripe and raucous." And Porter always believes in exploring what she finds funny. "I’m not sure it’s a choice. It’s just my nature. I find much of life absurd. I was such a goof in dance when I began, because I didn’t start taking ballet lessons until I was in my teens. And at the time, I was also captain of the high school volleyball team and was butching it up on the court. My ballet skills were so rudimentary, I was in class with ten-year-olds, towering above them at the ballet barre. If I hadn’t approached it with a sense of humour, I would not have survived. It was pretty funny for everyone. On a practical note, you can say things through humour that you can’t get away with in any other way. No matter how much training and practice a person has, bodies have a way of reminding us that we are, in fact, rather foolish and absurd creatures. Keeps a person humble. I choose humour and humility over humiliation any day."

Getting to Know Your Fruit is a hybrid of dance, theatre and almost stand-up comedy. "I’d definitely situate it somewhere in between things," says Porter, "and that’s a sensual and rewarding place to spend time. I work in a very multi-disciplinary way. Professionally, I am a writer and dancer, and I grew up playing music, and studied acting and voice early in my career. I’ve focused on different aspects at different times in my career. The stage show Getting to Know Your Fruit was born out of a desire to include all of it: the fruits of my creative career. I find each form affects the other. My singing changes how I dance. Sometimes I have to stop dancing – mid-stream – to write something down. Sometimes I cannot find the thrust of a story until I dance. Dancing has a way of helping me see what I’m holding back. Dancing keeps me honest. And writing stabilizes me. For me, they are all inter-related."

Getting to Know Your Fruit, the stage production, was set to premiere in May of 2020. Fifteen months later, Fall for Dance North is premiering a filmed version. "I had more time to research fruit. And memoir," says Porter. " Obviously, film and stage are very different forms, and while I have 30 years of experience creating stage works and performing live, I have much less experience in film. So I worked in collaboration with filmmaker William Yong – who also has extensive experience in dance – and followed his lead on many points to capture the work for film. While I love interacting with the audience when I perform live, that’s obviously not possible for film, but we have been able to do magical things on film not possible on stage. The order of scenes and the music are different. There are now two versions of the work: live and filmed. I would say this film is inspired by my original show. This is like a cinematic portrait of the original stage version."

From the photos it is also obvious that Porter believes in looking fabulous. "I have loved dressing up since I was a kid. The first birthday I spent in Toronto, in 1998, I was walking down Queen Street and saw a rack of clothes in front of a shop. It was mostly old jeans, but there was this bright pink overly ruffled long dress. Gaudy and fantastic. Something prompted me to pick it up and go to the back of the store to try it on. It fit perfectly and I wore it to my party that night. So began my Birthday Ballgown tradition. Over the years, I collected more and more ‘fancy clothes’ and would set up a dressing room for my guests. They could choose and wear whatever they wanted from the pile. You get to transform and be a different person in different clothes. Fun and powerful."

That fun and power gets expressed throughout Getting to Know Your Fruit. "I generally do my own costumes. But with help from people who have skills I don’t. I have a closet full of things I collect from Frenchy’s the second hand stores in in Nova Scotia. I collect things over time as I build a piece. Then I have help in implementation by wonderful wardrobe people. This time Alex Gilbert and Chriss Faris helped with the finer work of fitting and extending designs. For this film, William had a voice in choosing what I was wearing in any scene. Apart from some set pieces for set stories, we had a pile of options and would decide as we set up the scene. Kept it fresh."

Fresh and thematically consistent. "I want my audiences to be delighted and laugh at some of the foolishness, but also to think. About stories, about themselves. I think William has done a great job of capturing the contrasts in the work, both the vulnerable and the goofiness. One of the early press reviews noted my 'rare and genuine goofiness.' I think goofiness is important. It breeds humility, trust and love. Playing is a form of love."

The word 'fruit' has historically been used to refer, pejoratively, to LGBTQers. We have read and heard a lot about gay male dancers and creators, out and closeted, struggling to claim their place in their chosen art form. But there seems to be little attention paid to queer women. "How many queer women can we name in dance?" asks Porter. "The dance form I was trained in – contemporary dance – has historically been based on dancers doing what they’re told to do. Executing pre-prescribed movement as closely as possible to the ideal presented to them. Not a space very conducive to realizing deeper things within your sensual self that have to do with claiming your right to pleasure or validating your experience. More women are starting to say ‘This is not working for me.' We still have lots of work to do around women feeling empowered to claim their physical experience in the world. And to honour the truths their bodies tell them. The world is changing with overtly lesbian works emerging from the major ballet companies. It’s an exciting time. Diversity can open to everyone. For me, dancing has played a large part in my being able to claim the physical truths of my life. It’s always in process."

Finally I ask Porter to recommend the perfect snack to complement a viewing of Getting to Know Your Fruit from the comfort of our homes. "In a live show, I’d throw fruit at the audience to taste," says Porter. "But at home alone? Well, one of the show’s educational thrusts is that many things are called ‘fruit’ which are not technically fruit, and vice versa. Many things you might not expect to be fruit actually are fruit. Interpretation is everything, so potato chips could be considered ‘fruit’ because they’re made from ‘pommes de terres’ (French for potato is 'apples of the earth'). Or, say, wine! Because, you know . . . grape juice. You see where I’m going with this? Or you could nosh down on some banana bread, or even, some seasonal pumpkin pie because, did you know that a pumpkin is a berry? True fact."