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Surrendering to the Tenderness of Ghost Gestures
From the trembling of the hand, the barely perceptible undulation of the walk, and the wandering gaze, to the body’s uncontrollable shivers, micromovements are sub- or unconscious gestures that sustain a sense of bodily continuity and composure by creating what philosopher and somatic educator Elizabeth Behnke calls “ongoing kinesthetic holding patterns.”1 Somatic hyphens of sorts, micromovements…
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Dreaming Undreamt Dreams with Lara Kramer
In her 75-minute performance Eating bones and Licking bread(2020), Lara Kramer returns to a recurring dream that has periodicallyvisited her since childhood: she is standing in a long line waitingto enter a huge dome-like glass house. Soldiers filter who can get in.The dream is a thicket of nostalgia, scarcity, and otherworldliness,and basking in those—at times…
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Turning our ears to our soft pulsating bellies
Ji zoongde’eyaang (2022) was a collaboration between Lara Kramer and her mother Ida Baptiste, artist, and retired Ojibwa language teacher (Member of Berens River First Nation, Manitoba, Treaty 5). Together they created a series of bright jingle-adorned trade blankets, one of which inspired the 2024 performance by the same name: Gorgeous Tongue. The title refers…