Jani Lauzon (born September 29, 1959)[1] is a Canadian director, and multidisciplinary performer from the East Kootenay region of British Columbia.

[5] She also studied with world renowned masters including Patsy Rodenburg, Yoshi Oida, David Smukler, Neil Freeman, Eugene Lion, and Tadashi Suzuki.

[8] In 2012, she performed a dual role as Cordelia and the Fool in an all-aboriginal production of William Shakespeare's King Lear at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, alongside a cast that also included August Schellenberg as Lear,[9] Tantoo Cardinal as Regan, Billy Merasty as Gloucester and Craig Lauzon as Kent.

[18]Paper Canoe Projects also produces Lauzon’s original work[19] including Prophecy Fog, I Call Myself Princess and A Side of Dreams.

[21] In 2023, she directed 1939 at the Stratford Festival, a play she co-wrote with Kailtyn Riordan about five Residential school students tasked with performing All’s Well that Ends Well for the Royal Tour.

Muppet credits include Fraggle Rock,[4] additional puppetry on Follow That Bird, performing on The Jim Henson Hour, and a cat in the Sesame Street Canada television special "Basil Hears a Noise".

Her other non-Henson credits include Maggie on Groundling Marsh and regular roles on The Big Comfy Couch, The Longhouse Tales, Alligator Pie, Happy Castle, Prairie Berry Pie, Mr. Dressup, Wumpa's World, Little Star and Iris the Happy Professor.

[3] Lauzon has also appeared on camera in TV and movies such as Code Name: Eternity, Conspiracy of Silence, Business Management, Maggie's Life, Bingo Road, Destiny Ridge, Ruby and the Well and Saving Hope.

It included songs such as “Real Rez Blues”, “Lay your Ego Down,” and “Beyond Reason”, that featured Lauzon on the Western flute.

[3] Lauzon was an artist educator at the junior campus for Toronto’s Claude Watson School for the Arts in the 1980s.

In 2004 she won a Gemini for her role as Seeka in the series Wumpa’s World, the first Metis puppeteer to garner the award.

[3] In 2021, she received the ACTRA Toronto Award of Excellence celebrating both her body of work and her commitment to advocacy for inclusion.

[3] In November 2024, amidst a production of her stage play 1939, Lauzon was accused of falsely claiming Metis heritage.