COVID-19 has brought about challenging times for people and especially challenging times for those with loved ones on the other side of the world.

After hearing of her biological father’s illness and being unable to see him, Montserrat Heras has decided to create a work titled El Zaragozeño while in residence at Cool Change in an attempt to shorten the emotional and physical distance that has existed between the two of them for most of her life.

Feeling the necessity to understand her biological roots in relation to her identity, the work aims to explore the life of her father Carlos where he grew up in Zaragoza, Spain. Through movement, Heras will physicalise interviews and conversations with him while drawing inspiration from images and music such as family photos and his favourite songs.

In her practice, Heras believes that movement speaks louder than words and aims to transcend feelings that are not possible to articulate through physical language. Through the work El Zaragozeño, she will use the form of contemporary dance to highlight her father Carlos’s most precious memories and celebrate his life.

Montserrat Heras is an emerging Australian, Spanish and Mexican dance artist based in Perth. She has trained professionally at Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company (Israel, 2019), Broadway Dance Centre (NYC, 2016) and Transit Dance (Melbourne, 2017).

National and international performance opportunities include FRINGE WORLD (Perth, 2021), Malaysia International Arts Festival (2018), MASA (Israel, 2019), SIREN by GOGI Dance Collective and Talitha Maslin, SITU-8 and Shortcuts by STRUT DANCE.

She has worked in film, choreographing Undergarment Odysseys, directed by Alex Thomson and nominated for Best Australian Spotlight, as well as performing for film in These Walls, directed by Brodie May and featured in Revelation Perth International Film Festival 2021.

Her choreographic practice has been presented as part of FRINGE WORLD 2021, Shortcuts by STRUT, and NITZOZOT (Israel). In November 2021, she developed a work titled Together We Unravel alongside artist Elsa Bignell, sponsored by Propel Youth Arts and Drug Aware.