“Tara Dawn Solheim exhibits an uncanny control of range, tone and volume with her voice. Her works have a blues and jazz inflected treatment and occasional soaring glissandos reminiscent of Joni Mitchell.” 

– Maury Wrubleski

Tara Dawn Solheim is an interdisciplinary Canadian artist who explores language, poetry, and music. She creates immersive performance poetry and musical experiences that explore connections between humanity, metaphysics, and nature. Her artistic practice combines music creation, a cappella singing, performance poetry, and somatic exploration.

She lived for five years in Tokyo, Japan where she performed extensively with several music collectives. Her original music draws on blues & jazz from the 1920-30’s. Tara Dawn has performed in many contexts throughout Canada & Japan. Performances include a cappella singing & piano. You can also find her spinning music as a DJ.

For 10 years, she served as Executive Director of Sage Hill Writing, a non-profit organization providing writing residencies for professional writers and youth. She was the producer and host of The Vertigo Series, a monthly performance event series featuring writers and musicians for over a decade.

Tara Dawn continues to create new literary work through residencies across Canada including the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, St. Peter’s College, and Wallace Stegner House. She is currently developing a body of performance work called WonderWalker Reimagined. WonderWalker is a female superhero character who wanders the prairies to bring light and awe to the forces of nature. In this project, there is a glimmer of ancient mystery that resonates within research Tara Dawn has been doing about her Norwegian ancestors and archetypal forces.

Her exploration of the physicality of the voice has led Tara Dawn to study somatic practices including Fitzmaurice Voicework and the Franklin Method. She is a Usui Reiki Master and a Certified Practitioner with Somatic Experiencing® International. Tara Dawn investigates the elasticity of the body as an instrument through somatic practices to explore how we can stretch to extremes in search of new physical, mental, emotional ways of doing things, and come back towards centre with updated information to allow fresh possibilities for expression and resonation.