Amara Barner

Amara Barner is a BIPOC multidisciplinary artist from the US, and has been based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal since 2016. At 18 years old, Barner became the youngest dancer ever hired for the Montreal company, RUBBERBAND. She toured internationally with the company from 2016-2021. Amara has since gone on to perform the works of artists such as Anne Plamondon, Dana Gingras/Animals of Distinction, and Elon Höglund/Tentacle Tribe. Amara was featured in Dance Magazine’s July 2020 issue as an artist “On The Rise“. Her self-driven creative work combines fibre set designs and installations that are activated with dance performance. Her solo, The Songbird Dreams of Singing won the Emerging Artist Prize at Festival Quartiers Danses in 2023. She also presented a solo entitled Mongrel that premiered at Tangente in 2024, as well as Ceremony for the Echoes of Chaos at Festival Quartiers Danses in 2024. Barner is currently a faculty member at the USA dance conventions, NEOVATE and Intrigue Dance Intensive. She is a contemporary dance instructor at Danse à la carte (DAC), and École de danse contemporain de Montréal (EDCM), where she shares her personally developed movement practice, Soft Chaos. Barner also teaches contemporary technique at École supérieure de ballet du Québec (ESBQ), and the Compagnie de danse contemporaine du Québec (CDCQ). The CDCQ dancers premiered a twenty-minute work by Barner, entitled Next in Line in May 2025, and the second year students of EDCM will premiere a new work in December 2025. Amara is currently re-visiting Mongrel for the visual art festival, artch, adapting the solo to be durational in length and for a fully immersive audience in Place Ville Marie for presentations mid-October 2025. She is also in the creation stage of her first evening length work entitled, A Woman is a Bird.