Kaia Portner // Nomi Nova – Capital Erotica
20 ⇾ Jul. 31 2026 (Monday – Friday)
© Camilo Luna
Biography
Kaia Portner is a Montreal-based dancer, choreographer, and showgirl performer whose practice bridges contemporary dance, burlesque, and nightlife performance. She holds a BFA in Contemporary Dance and Choreography from Concordia University. Her choreographic work situates showgirl performance as a cultural magnifying glass, using heightened aesthetics and choreographic precision to examine how bodies are consumed, celebrated, and politicized across stage and nightlife environments.
Her solo work Capital Erotica was presented by Tangente Danse as part of Danses Buissonnières in 2024 and will premiere in their 2026 fall season. She has also presented excerpts of her research project I’m-Pulse at Studio 303’s Marathon and with Art Volt x POP Montréal.
Kaia’s artistic identity is closely tied to her showgirl persona, Nomi Nova, developed through extensive experience in Montreal’s nightlife. Alongside her choreographic work, she collaborates across disciplines in live and screen performances and teaches Sensual Flow and Heels at Studio Bizz.
Project Details
The showgirl is a fantastical illusion motivated by economic downturn and sensual labour. Commanding a performance space where glamour and vulnerability synchronise, Capital Erotica explores the deconstruction of burlesque codes, desire as a hybridized contemporary state, and femininity as a navigation system towards the tensions between intimacy and power. Reflecting on a practice based in Montreal’s nightlife, codified in historical archetypes, the cabaret and beyond, this solo looks toward the personal and future implications of what it means to be a showgirl. The audience is invited into a world of metamorphosis, where the body is a spectacle, encouraged to be observed explicitly.