Lara Kramer is a performer, choreographer, and multidisciplinary artist of mixed Oji-cree and settler heritage, raised in London, Ontario. She lives and works in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal. Her choreographic work, research and field work over the last fifteen years has been grounded in intergenerational relations, intergenerational knowledge, and the impacts of the indigenous Residential Schools of Canada. She is the first generation in her family to not attend the Residential schools. Her creations in the form of dance, performance and installation have been presented across Canada and Australia, New Zealand, Martinique, Norway, Vienna, the US and the UK.
She has received multiple awards, acknowledgments, and prizes for her work both as an emerging and established artist. In 2018, Lara received the Jacqueline-Lemieux Prize for recognition of artistic excellence and distinguished career achievement in dance. Lara Kramer is a Center de Création O Vertigo – CCOV Associate Artist since 2021.
Titre: Gorgeous Tongue (2024)
Photo: Alex Côté
Co-produced Festival TransAmériques + Centre de Création O Vertigo – CCOV
With the support of Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
Creative residencies Centre de Création O Vertigo – CCOV + Compagnie Marie Chouinard + MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels)
Gorgeous Tongue (2024)
Anchored in this world and orbiting a universe beyond, a lone performer unfolds memories on stage through rhythmic scores. For Gorgeous Tongue, Lara Kramer invites Nêhiyaw/Métis dance artist Jeanette Kotowich to embody stories, dreams, and songs that stem from Lara’s Anishinaabe lineage. Entering Kramer’s artistic constellation, Kotowich performs multiple movement sequences to embrace the past and usher in a new world. Gorgeous Tongue is a celebration of Indigenous transmission, transformation, and futurity.
Produced by Lara Kramer Danse
Conceived, Created, Set and Sound Design by Lara Kramer
Performed by Jeanette Kotowich
Guest artist François Bouvier
Outside Eye Peter James
Lighting Design and Technical Director Jo Vignola
Knowledge Keeper Ida Baptiste
Elder Emerson Ninigishki’ing
Techical Director Assistant Chloé Depommier
Them Voices (2021)
In Them Voices, past and future generations come together and manifest in Lara Kramer’s body, mind and dreams. The choreographer of mixed Oji-Cree and settler heritage confronts an unceasing and eternal present, and searches to be inside the place that carries memory and future imagination. Kramer anchors herself and becomes an open channel through time and space; her multidisciplinary practice embodies the primordial voices of the past and the future.
This solo performance explores the inter-relationality between land, the artist’s body and her memory and future memory, drawing on notions of performance, social critique and cultural resistance. Kramer addresses a world where histories come together to assess the consequences of our actions on future generations. Laying out in all possible directions. What has been exerted, and what is failed. What is not yet seen or dreamt of. All is together, intersecting in Them Voice. The artist strives to re-imagine new pathways connected to future ancestors in their flight and journey.
Produced by Lara Kramer Danse
Conceived, created, set and performed by Lara Kramer
Sound Creation and Editing Lara Kramer + Simon Riverin
Outside Eyes Peter James + Ivanie Aubin-Malo
Anishinaabe Knowledge Keeper Ida Baptiste
Elder Emerson Ninigishki’ing
Documentation Ivanie Aubin-Malo + James Oscar
Lighting Design Hugo Dalphond
Technical Director Joannie Vignola
Stage Manager Marie-Pier Jaques
Title: Them Voices (2021)
Photo credit: Stefan Petersen
Co-produced by Festival TransAmériques + Centre de Création O Vertigo – CCOV
Delegate Producer Centre de Création O Vertigo – CCOV
With the support of Conseil des arts du Canada + Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec
Creative residencies Centre de Création O Vertigo – CCOV + Place des Arts + Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal + Théâtre Aux Écuries + Dancemakers (Toronto)
Presented in association with Espace Libre
Title: Windigo (2018)
Photo credit: Frédéric Chais
Co-produced by Festival TransAmériques + CanDance Creation Fund + National Arts Center (Ottawa) + Centre de Création O Vertigo – CCOV (Montréal) + Dancing on the Edge (Vancouver) + Usine C (Montreal)
Delegate producer : Centre de Création O Vertigo – CCOV
With the support of The Cole Foundation
Technical residencies Usine C + Centre de Création O Vertigo Presented in association with MAI + Espace Libre
Windigo (2018)
Fierce and visceral, Windigo resonates with us as a cry, a vibrant echo of a long history of human devastation, and violation of land and culture. Returning to her grandmother’s home in the Lac Seul Reserve in northwestern Ontario, the Canadian choreographer Lara Kramer, of Ojibway and Cree heritage, challenges the Canadian narrative of the colonial project of reconciliation and uses narrative as a form of resistance.
With the air of a post-apocalyptic ballad, Windigo confronts the violence perpetrated against Indigenous lands and bodies. Overlapped mattresses ripped open with a knife, shredded, and straddled. A jumble of reanimated objects, a breath of life in death. Peter James and Jassem Hindi continuously transform, infused with the original sound played live by Lara Kramer. The choreographer’s voice with her child gives space to the visual and heart to the inner landscape. The work plays with strong symbols, powerful metamorphoses and vivid emotions, sowing hope in the midst of massive destruction.
Produced by Lara Kramer Danse
Choreography, Set, Sound and Costume Design Lara Kramer
Created with and performed by Jassem Hindi + Peter James
Sound Editing Lara Kramer + Marc Meriläinen
Outside Eyes Stefan Petersen + Andrew Tay + Jacob Wren
Lighting Design Paul Chambers
Knowledge Keeper Ida Baptiste
Title: Eating Bones and Licking Bread (2020)
Photo credit: Stefan Petersen
Titre: Rétrospective à l’Espace Libre
© Jérémie Battaglia // Graphisme : Alice Picard – Collaboration Spéciale
Cover photo credit: Windigo (2018) by Stefan Petersen