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Hello Sunshine!
an account of life with sun allergy
“autobiographical tour de force performance”
photo by Matt Hertendy
“Unexpected moments of rawness and hilarity – Porter manages to reach within all the difficult-to-undersand, beautiful, chaotic, and tender corners of her life.”
“An elegant, strikingly original, and tenderly funny blend of creative social commentary and personal experiences stitched together with songs, dances, and energetic monologues”
Rebelle Zine_review
photo by Matt Hertendy
Celebrated for her playful, irreverent and virtuosic performance, Sara Porter premiered the third of her memoir-based solos at the SummerWorks Performance Festival in August 2026.
Hello Sunshine! is a one-woman “more than a musical” and multidisciplinary dance about experience living with sun allergy—the social, personal, and logistical challenges of negotiating invisible disability.
Developed through her travels to rainy Scotland, and 24-hour darkness in Northern Norway, Hello Sunshine! offers an absurdist account of inventive living set against a backdrop of pop songs about sunshine.
At the age of 23, Sara Porter suddenly could not tolerate sunlight. She spent five years testing for medical diagnosis and eventually found herself in a photobiology research hospital in Dundee Scotland diagnosed with PMLE, an idiopathic autoimmune disorder that limits the skin's capacity to absorb UV light.
Life changed. Sara installed UV filters in the windows of her house and car and, eventually acquired a disability permit to park close to doorways for quick access to indoors. She tried all manner of medications and potions, and ultimately, simply has lived her life away from the rays of sun.
photo by Danil Rokke
WORLD PREMIERE AT SUMMERWORKS FESTIVAL
AUGUST 2026
Choreographer, Writer & Performer: Sara Porter
Co-Producer: Alex Jodi Verge
Creative Consultant: Katherine Duncanson
Video Designer & Choreographic Collaborator: Linnea Swan
Disability Dramaturge & Creative Collaborator: Alex Bulmer
Lighting Designer: Rebecca Picherack
Sound Designer: Stephen Joffe
Visual Art Contributor: Elaine Whittaker
Costume Consultant: Val Calam
Audio Describer: Lindsay Zier-Vogel
Technical Director: Franco Pang
Technical Support: Curtis Whittaker
Stage Manager: A.J. Morra
Assistant Stage Manager / Performer: Kathy Le
Accessibility Facilitator: Lorna Craig
Administrative Assistant: Cass Cabral Pucci
Marketing: Damien Nelson / Wants & Able
Supported by generous contributions from the DAVVI Centre for Performing Arts (Northern Norway), KM Hunter Foundation, Lindy Green Family Foundation, and The Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, The Registry Theatre Residency Program (Kitchener).
photo by Omer Yukseker
Sara's creative work lives at the intersection of literary memoir and movement and provides a creative frame to explore the unusual story of her life in a light-averse body. With the aid of a Canada Council grant, Sara travelled to the Dundee photobiology clinic - in September 2023 - to retrace her steps of discovery and spend time in the fog, considering how to tell the story of life in the shadows.
The work wrestles with grief, notions of disability, and plays with revelation - about the subtle invisible adjustments to a day that make life unique.
In the world of Sara Porter, where absurdity always find a home, she channels Pamela Anderson, explores various ways to wear a bikini, celebrates free Botox, and offers her body as a landing strip for butterflies.
In a work that blends poetic imagery with dance and clown, Sara offers performance as reminder of how imagination shapes a life.
