Heidi Carlsen

Over the past 25 years, performance artist Heidi Carlsen has created and presented works that investigate both surreal and quotidian worlds. Through movement-driven performances, Carlsen’s work reveals darkness, humor, and above all, humanity. Each performance embraces liminality, both spatial and temporal, and pushes upon the boundaries of the tangible and imagined.

Carlsen’s performances emerge from multi-faceted training, and have been presented in a myriad of venues. She earned an MFA in Directing from the California Institute of the Arts and later was a Fulbright Fellow in Poland. There, Carlsen studied the work of Jerzy Grotowski and created an original musical movement theater piece titled, + – INFINITY. A certified Feldenkrais practitioner, she integrates phenomenological inquiry into her artistic and educational practices. She has taught at San Francisco State University and the American Conservatory Theater among others, and has performed and taught in Germany, Norway, Denmark, Poland, and across the United States. She currently lives and works in San Francisco.