Gorgeous Tongue

She has received numerous accolades among which the Canada Council for the Arts’ Jacqueline-Lemieux Prize. Lara Kramer is a Centre de Création O Vertigo – CCOV Associate Artist since 2021. This is her fourth collaboration with the Festival TransAmériques.

Following Fragments (2009), informed by her mother’s experience at the Residential Schools, and Native Girl Syndrome (2013), which explored deceleration as a form of resistance, she created a two-pronged project for the 2018 edition of FTA: in the performance Windigo and the installation Phantom Stills & Vibrations, she examined the effects of boarding schools on three generations of her family, who were forcibly sent away to these institutions.

For the 2019 edition of FTA, in collaboration with Émilie Monnet, she created This Time Will Be Different, an installation-performance denouncing the report issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. The piece sought to shed light on the report’s perpetuation of the status quo, which was again invoked to the detriment of Indigenous Peoples. Based on interviews conducted with several members of the First Nations, the performance brought together different generations and served as a catalyst for reclaiming a history previously confined to a written narrative dominated by non-Indigenous voices. By extending her research to multigenerational experiences, Kramer broadens her quest with Them Voices (FTA 2022 and 2023), allowing herself to dream of a future and to fuel new rhythms, new modes of mobility. Gorgeous Tongue is the artist’s sixth appearance at the Festival.

Jeanette Kotowich

Jeanette Kotowich is from Treaty 4 territory in Saskatchewan and currently resides on the ancestral and unceded Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ/, and Xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territories (Vancouver). Kotowich creates contemporary dance that reflects Nêhiyaw/Métis cosmology and Indigenous futurism. Her recent works Kwe and Kisiskâciwan have been presented in Canada and Australia. During the pandemic, Kotowich created CO-VIDS, a series of short experimental dance films. She has been artist-in-residency at the NAC Indigenous Theatre and The Dance Centre and is now Artistic Associate at Raven Spirit Dance.