Local performance artist Heidi J is one of my favorite people. We met a few years back when Heidi was just beginning work on the Free System-Sistema Libre Project . I became involved in helping Heidi document some pieces of her project and since then, I've had a front-row seat in watching her ideas become concrete visuals that emanate heart, meaning, laughter, empathy and hope.
Heidi J has collaborated with dozens of like-minded humans over the years, working together with people from all walks of life to create the framework for a discussion about humanity, power, trauma, love and acceptance in a way that I'm not sure has ever been done before.
Heidi has a unique ability to take big, abstract ideas like shame, religion, or identity and whittle them down into their most basic forms, using a mix of comedy, music, dance and performance art to illustrate and investigate a common experience. In every piece she creates, Heidi helps her audience both expand and focus their own engagement with concepts that are universal to all humans, and you can't help but love her while she does it.
As part of the project, Heidi J has filmed and edited a handful of short films that promote the ideals of Free System-Sistema Libre, and she's ready to invite everyone to the premier of the collection at its debut at the Roxy Theater in Missoula. The film will show on June 8 at 7:30pm. You can learn more about her projects at her website, or just come out to the show and see it for yourself. Tickets to the show can be purchased at www.theroxytheater.org.
Join Heidi J., Theresa McGeary and Rhonda Callison for a fun and thought-provoking evening of multimedia art films! Each film is 5-10 minutes long and was created collaboratively with several local and national artists. These films use comedy, theater, music and movement to explore themes of our current system and our own capacity and power to influence humanity’s evolution. Together we will have opportunities for fun interactions and reflections between films. We will conclude the event by dreaming together and re-imagining our world.
These films are part of the Free System-Sistema Libre Multimedia Art Project, whose purpose is to co-create art with a diverse group of people, allowing each individual to share their own voice and to be seen, showing that we are intrinsically connected and are worthy of living within healthy, just, loving, integrated systems. These systems would support processes of decolonization through art, mindfulness practices and connection to the land, ancestors and cosmos. We aim to inspire a local and potentially global audience to connect with and empower one another, looking toward ourselves for deeper change.
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