Indigenous dance artist Lara Kramer’s Gorgeous Tongue makes Vancouver comeback at Matriarchs Uprising, February 21

The solo for Jeanette Kotowich addresses the choreographer’s mixed Oji-Cree and Mennonite ancestry

By Gail Johnson

Gorgeous Tongue. Photo by Mathieu Verreault

O.Dela Arts and The Dance Centre present Matriarchs Uprising from February 17 to 22 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre, with Gorgeous Tongue on February 21 at 8 pm

IN GORGEOUS TONGUE, Anishinaabe choreographer Lara Kramer has Nêhiyaw and Métis dance artist Jeanette Kotowich embodying stories, dreams, and songs that stem from her Indigenous heritage.

Kramer, who is also a performer and multidisciplinary artist, is of mixed Oji-Cree and Mennonite ancestry and lives in Montreal (known as Tiohtià:ke in the Mohawk language Kanien’kéha, and Mooniyang in Anishinaabemowin). She has described Gorgeous Tongue as a celebration of “Indigenous transmission, transformation and futurity”. The artist is known for incorporating unexpected everyday objects—from mattresses to trash heaps—into her works as a way to address colonialism and her mixed lineage.

Having grown out of the two artists’ friendship, the solo alternates between the need for regulation and the discovery of a new hunger. On the heels of past works Windigo and Them Voices, Kramer explores the desire and drive for pleasure and the strength of instinctual connections. Gorgeous Tongue had its Western Canadian premiere at Dancing on the Edge 2024. 

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