Dancemakers Artist in Residence Lara Kramer
Conceived, Created, Scenography, and Performed by Lara Kramer
As we embraced the performances of Eating bones and Licking bread, this winter, we looked to James Oscar who, with his piece Love in the Time of Cholera is not Love: Searching, Searching, Searching Among the Bones and the Bread, gives us a thoughtful/thought provoking insight into Lara Kramer’s “… tactile, man made world. Layers of memories, old, new, invented.”
Eating bones and Licking bread was first showcased at Dancemakers’ Flowchart series in November 2018, curated by Amelia Ehrhardt. Since then, it has been further developed and presented at the Festival International d’Art Performance 2nd Edition (FIAP), and on November 5 – 12, 2019 at Martinique’s Musée d’Archéologie Précolombienne et de Préhistoire de la Martinique and at Lycée Centre Sud de Ducos High School, co-curated by FIAP’s Annabel Guérédrat and Henri Tauliaut.
Ida Baptiste, Peter James, and Ana Claudette Groppler | Outside Eyes
James Oscar | Documentation
Emerson Nanigishkang & Ida Baptiste | Knowledge Keeperes
Shania Bailey-Edmons | Te Kura Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School
Lara Kramer | Sound Mixing
Marc Merilainen | Sound Editing
Gabriel Cropley | Lighting Designer
James Oscar Introductory Notes and Extended Bibliography
About Lara Kramer
Lara is a performer, choreographer and multidisciplinary artist of mixed Oji-Cree and settler heritage based in Montreal. Her critically acclaimed works portray the contrast of the brutal relations between Indigenous peoples and colonial society and have been presented across Canada and even in Australia, New Zealand, Martinique and the UK.
Lara has received multiple awards, acknowledgements and prizes for her work. Kramer was recognized and appointed as a Human Rights Advocate through the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre in 2012. In 2014, Lara was awarded the Scholarship of Audacity – Caisse de la culture from the OFFTA, Montreal, as well was commissioned by The Canada Dance Festival for her work Native Girl Syndrome. In 2017-18 Lara was presented with the prestigious Ashley Fellowship with Trent University, as well was appointed the CanDance creation fund in for her work Windigo. In 2018, Lara received the Jacqueline-Lemieux Prize for recognition of artistic excellence and distinguished career achievement in dance.
The subjugation of her people, Canadian Cree and Ojibwe tribes, provides the impetus for Lara Kramer… This process includes cultural genocide carried out in residential schools whose mission was to “stamp out the Indian” in First Nations children. Kramer is the first of four generations not subject to this desecration.. [the] work explores her reconnection to her ancestors’ country, including places of family significance.
Sydney Morning Herald, May 2019
Lara Kramer’s work employs powerful imagery. Often blunt and raw, playing with the strengths and vulnerability of the body, her pieces stand out for their engagement, sensitivity, close and instinctive listening to the body, and her attention to the invisible.
She has been on the faculty of the Indigenous Dance Residency at The Banff Centre, and has taught workshops across Canada and in Melboune, Australia. Lara was the guest teacher at Nunatta Isiginnaartitsisarfia – The National Theatre of Greenland in 2018. She also landed her debut role in François Delisle film Cash Nexus (2018) as the supporting character Angie. Lara has participated in several residencies, including Dancemakers Artist in Residency from 2018-2021.
Top Image: Lara Kramer by Stefan Petersen