Rise 2026: Gorgeous Tongue

Anchored in this world and orbiting a universe beyond, a lone performer unfolds remembrance through rhythmic scores. In Gorgeous Tongue, Lara Kramer embodies stories and dreams rooted in her Anishinaabe lineage. Entering Kramers artistic constellation invites audiences into the intimacy of her offering while ushering in new worlds.Born from the chemistry and kinship between two artists, For Gorgeous Tongue emerged when Lara Kramer invited Nhiyaw/Mtis dance artist Jeanette Kotowich to collaborate and perform the solo. In this iteration, Kramer carries the solo forward, offering the work for the public.This solo oscillates between the need for regulation and the discovery of a new appetite an opening toward transformation. Kramer explores pleasure, instinct, and the strength of gut-level connection: an interior technology carried within the body that opens portals across time and space and holds ancestral intelligence. Through embodied listening and visceral knowing, the work calls for deep connection, heightened awareness, and trust in instinct as a source of agency.Activated through body, minimal sound, and material engagement, metamorphosis unfolds. We witness human and non-human, energy and friction, where multiple meanings emerge. Landscapes shift and textures arise through relational exchange between body, object, sound, and space. Moments of struggle, play, turmoil, and surrender trace the full arc of a star beings journeyrevealing perseverance, agency, and Indigenous futurity.Gorgeous Tongue is an invitation to imagine and move toward what is possible. Kramer draws from her Anishinaabe creation story of coming from the stars:And we are asked, Do you still want to go? These are the stories of our journey from the stars, of how we came to be. Somewhere amongst all these strands, we are weaving our imagination dreaming of hard loving and future journeys, transporting in soft, gorgeous tongue. Lara KramerAge suitability 16+. Contains nudity.Credits:
Produced | Lara Kramer
Conceived, Created, Set and Sound Design | Lara Kramer
Performed | Lara Kramer
Guest Artist | TBA
Outside Eye | Peter James
Lighting Design and Technical Director | Jo Vignola
Knowledge Keeper | Ida Baptiste
Elder | Emerson Ninigishkiing
Technical Director Assistant | Chlo DepommierArtist biography:
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 Tiohti:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal.Over the past sixteen years, her choreographic work, research, and fieldwork have focused on intergenerational relations, intergenerational knowledge, and the impacts of the Indian Residential Schools of Canada. Kramer is the first generation in her family not to attend the Residential schools.Her approach to experiential practice and the creative process of performance, sonic development, and visual design is based on embodying experiences like dreams, memories, knowledge, and reclamation. Her dance, performance, and installation creations have been showcased across North America, Europe, Australia/Oceania, and Martinique.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.Two artworks from Kramers In Blankets, Herds and Ghosts were recently acquired by Pointe--Callire, Museum of Archaeology and History (2022-23). Lara Kramer is a Center de Cration O Vertigo CCOV Associate Artist since 2021.https://larakramer.ca/