The Basin Art Mine launches its 2025 season on Mar. 31, when it welcomes jazz musician Caroline Davis and dance artist Michelle Boulé for an “immersive night of improvisation, saxophone, electronics, and dance.”
Davis has toured extensively with prominent jazz groups, and has herself produced eight studio albums. Boulé has danced, taught, and choreographed in over 25 countries, and has had her work featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and on The Today Show.
“Caroline (Davis) is an amazing, internationally known player, and Michelle (Boulé) is an incredibly talented dancer living in Missoula,” said MJ Williams, who helped complete the one-year restoration project that converted a former mining facility into a new community arts space that opened last year.
The facility, purchased by fellow Basin resident Bryher Herak at a sheriff’s auction in 2023, was threatened briefly last summer by a lawsuit by the property’s former owner, OT Mining, which challenged the sale. But that suit was dismissed “with prejudice” in January by Jefferson County’s Fifth Judicial District Court.
The long term future of the Basin Art Mine, Herak said, is now secure. “It’s a done deal, and the space is finally, officially, totally ours,” she said.
After the Art Mine welcomes Boulé and Davis for an evening of dance and music, award winning jazz trombonist Naomi “Moon” Siegel will perform sometime in early June. Siegel will present selections from her recent album “Shatter the Glass Sanctuary.”
Jazz pianist and vocalist Cynthia Hilts is scheduled to perform sometime in July, presenting an unspecified collection of original music.
“We’ve got some other ideas, and, before the season ends, a few other things in the works,” said Williams. “It’’ll be a wonderful summer.”
The Basin Art Mine’s 2025 events season will conclude in September with additional performances, according to Williams, to be announced over the next few months.
