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This Time Will Be Different

Lara Kramer, Émilie Monnet

Denouncing the status quo so harmful to the Indigenous peoples of Canada, this installation-performance creates a decolonized space where generations come together to retake possession of their past and present.

Details

An intergenerational ceremony to celebrate Indigenous beauty and survival. A broadside aimed at the Canadian government as it continues to perpetuate the status quo to the detriment of Indigenous peoples, this installation-performance by Lara Kramer and Émilie Monnet portrays their strength and resilience. A response to constantly broken promises.

A child rips up, one by one, the 600 pages of the report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, as his grandmother, the visual artist Glenna Matoush, a survivor of the residential school system, looks on. Red paint, glue, jingling coins. The two artists consulted other members of their community, listening as they told their heartrending stories. With the slowness of a collective ritual, This Time Will Be Different creates a space for dialogue and for listening. An offering of space where stories are not set pieces written in books, but are exchanges of gestures and actions, bodies and souls engaged in a healing process, a place where people come together.

Credits

Produced by Lara Kramer Danse + Onishka Productions
Artistic Direction and Conception Lara Kramer + Émilie Monnet
Performed by Jayden Blacksmith + Joy Blacksmith + Lara Kramer + Ruby Caldwell Kramer + Glenna Matoush + Émilie Monnet + Simon Riverain with the participiation of Ivanie Aubin Malo + Nakha Bertrand + Anik Sioui
Outside Eye Glenna Matoush
Sound Recording and Conception Lara Kramer + Émilie Monnet with the participation of Stéphane Claude + Travis West
Organ Stefan Christoff
Sound Spacialization and Technical Direction Frédéric Auger
Lighting Design Hugo Dalphond
Assistance à la direction technique Simon Riverain

Song Cree Honour Song by Women of Wabano

Co-produced by Festival TransAmériques
Creative Residencies Studio 303 + MAI + Foundry Darling + CCOV

Presented in association with Monument-National

Written by Elsa Pépin
Translated by Neil Kroetsch

The Truth and Reconciliation Commissions’ final report go.fta.ca/commission

Premiered at Festival TransAmériques, Montreal, on June 1, 2019

Lara Kramer (Montreal)
Lara Kramer Danse

Lara Kramer is a Montreal-based performer, choreographer and multidisciplinary artist of Cree, Ojibwe and Mennonite heritage.

Full biography

Émilie Monnet (Montreal)
Lara Kramer Danse

Born from an Anishinaabe mother and a French father, Émilie Monnet’s practice is at the intersection of theatre, performance and media arts, and centres on questions of identity, memory, history and transformation.

Full biography