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 fieldwork over the last fifteen years have been grounded in intergenerational relations, intergenerational knowledge, and the impacts of the Indian Residential Schools of Canada. She is the first generation in her family to not attend Indian Residential schools. Kramer’s relationship to experiential practice and the creative process of performance, sonic development and visual design is anchored in the embodiment of experiences such as dreams, memories, knowledge, and reclamation. Her creations in the form of dance, performance and installation have been presented across Canada and Australia, New Zealand, Martinique, Vienna, Belgium, Norway, the US and the UK.

She has received multiple awards, acknowledgments, and prizes for her work both as an emerging and established artist. Lara was appointed a Human Rights Advocate through the Holocaust Memorial Centre of Montreal in 2012, following the national tour of her work Fragments, a performance piece informed by her mother’s stories and lived experience as a survivor of the Indian Residential Schools of Canada. In 2014, Lara was awarded the Scholarship of Audacity – Caisse de la culture from the OFFTA, Montreal, as well as 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 as appointed the CanDance creation fund for her work Windigo. In 2018, Lara received the Jacqueline-Lemieux Prize for recognition of artistic excellence and distinguished career achievement in dance. Two artworks from Kramer’s In Blankets, Herds and Ghosts were recently acquired by Pointe-à-Callière, Museum of Archaeology and History (2022-23). Her works are noted for the use of decelerating time to further enter an embodied pacing, sensing, and awareness on part of both performer and audience. Often blunt and raw, playing with the strength and vulnerability of the body, her pieces stand out for their engagement, sensitivity, close and intuitive listening to the body, and her attention to the invisible. Her practice is in Performance, Choreography, Multidisciplinary Art- sound, video, and Visual Art.

She has been on the faculty of the Indigenous Dance Residency at The Banff Centre and has taught workshops across Canada and in Australia and New Zealand. In 2016 Lara initiated The Cradleboard Project, a multi-generational community project fostering the reclaiming of traditional practices developed in collaboration with her mother, artist, and language carrier Ida Baptiste offered at the Native Women’s Shelter and Native Montreal. She 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 in 2019 as supporting character Angie. Lara has participated in several residencies including Indian Residential School Museum of Canada in Portage la Prairie in 2008 and Dancemakers Artist in Residency from 2018-2021. In 2021, Lara joined the MAI as an associate artist and programming curator for the MAI’s 25th anniversary season. Lara Kramer is a Center de Création O Vertigo (CCOV) Associate Artist since 2021. Lara has sat on the Board of Directors of the Native Women’s Shelter since 2020.