10 years of CLEaR FORUM

Designed and led by Sara Coffin, CLEaR Forum has grown from roughing-it roots, to a cozy, rustic retreat. Yet even in its earliest days, the program cultivated a space for artist-led growth and regeneration. The architecture of the program come from the values Sara cultivates in her own practice: relation, ease, joy, land, play, space, emergence, collaboration, potential, rest, comfort, risk; these pillars support a platform of exchange and exploration. Taking care not to leave anything assumed or implicit, these values are spoken aloud, and shape the air of meeting.

As the week begins, deep care for the agency of each individual within the program emerges as a foundational intention. In a strictly material sense, this means studio space for the week (24/7 access!), a skilled facilitation team to lead dialogue and exchange, housing with meals, and a stipend for the week. Put into practice, the valuing self-determination imbues a fluid potentiality within the container of the week. At times the artists delve into the hows and whys of their making practices, without plans for any future production. In other years, the cohort arrives with specific research questions, seeking to germinate ideas for new choreographic works. Depending on their goals, artists take on clearly defined roles of dancer and choreographer, with set groupings; but in recent years, more and more artists have sought to soften the boundaries between mover and maker, exploring with new combinations of minds and bodies each day in a horizontal plane.

Looking through the ten year history of this residency, common themes reverberate in the softly held space Sara has crafted, seasonal echoes across the years. As I attempt to tease out an understanding of these essential qualities, I feel the green shoots of spring at Ross Creek calling us to cultivate anew the seeds of our practices, our values as artists and humans. I see attentions tune into emergence and relation, through the shared unfurling of souls meeting in creation, opening to each other’s perspectives. Finally, I sense a rooting of time back into the cycles of the living earth, from the breathing tides of the Bay of Fundy, to our own heartbeat pump. These vital rhythms carry us back to our deep human urge to dance - to seek togetherness in movement. CLEaR Forum offers a place to center one's artistic practice within the shared dance of our living world. 

Photo by Kevin MacCormack

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