Masterclass with Laura Taler

Using her first film, the village trilogy (1995), and her latest film, Matryoshka Crush (2025) as bookends, Laura Taler will lead a masterclass about how her practice has evolved over the years. In the early 1990s, with no formal film training, Taler created the village trilogy. The film was shot and edited on 16mm film and employed a classic cinematic process with storyboards, shotlists, and an articulated scenario. For her latest film, Matryoshka Crush, Taler employed cinematic structures developed over years of filmmaking that allow for both precision and improvisation.

This masterclass will trace the evolution of Taler’s practice using case studies of her films and video installations. The class will include in-depth discussions about the process of planning a shoot and will provide participants with practical tools and tactics to communicate ideas to others. Spatial considerations in installation and screening contexts will also be discussed. All artists are welcome. Performers, visual artists, dance artists, filmmakers, musicians, and anyone interested in movement, the camera, and installation.

Still: the village trilogy

Romanian-born Canadian artist Laura Taler began her career as a contemporary dance choreographer before turning her attention to filmmaking and visual art.

In 1995 Taler made her first film, the village trilogy. Heralded by Dance International Magazine as marking the beginning of the dancefilm boom in Canada, the village trilogy alludes to the millions of people uprooted through emigration in the past century, capturing a time and place that is beyond our grasp, but not beyond our memory.

Laura Taler works across a range of media including performance, film, sound, sculpture, and installation. Her work explores how memory and history are linked to movement and how the body is able to carry the past without being oppressed by it. Taler began her career as a contemporary dance choreographer before turning her attention to filmmaking and visual art. Her work has been praised for its unique combination of emotional resonance, wit, and striking visuals. She has been a resident at the Banff Center for the Arts, Centro Cultural Recoleta (Buenos Aires), Carleton Immersive Media Studio (Ottawa), Ottawa Dance Directive, Unpack Studio (Havana) and a fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (Berlin). Awards include a Gold Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival, the Best Experimental Documentary award from Hot Docs!, Best of the Festival from New York’s Dance on Camera Festival, and SAW Gallery’s Dennis Tourbin Prize for New Performance. Most recently, her public art audio work MONAHAN was awarded the 2024 Creative City Network of Canada’s Public Art Legacy Award. To mark the 30th anniversary of her first film the village trilogy, screenings and master classes will take place in the 2025/26 season across Canada.

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