Sara Coffin - Creative Facilitator and Program Director
Photo Credit Kevin MacCormack
A word from Sara:
I see the stage, in its many shapes, sizes, and contexts as a mirror for human experience. I feel the poetry of our existence can be reflected in both the virtuosic imagination and the subtlety of the mundane.
I am thrilled to cultivate a forum for creative practice, research, and dialogue such as CLEaR Forum for the Atlantic Provinces. Talking while making, reflecting while doing, observing while moving, etc. all of these combinations have been key values in my own choreographic process and understanding my body of work. These values have also informed the construction of the CLEaR Forum Lab. For me, the legacy of an artist’s choreographic work does not lie in the performance tally, but instead in the relationships built in the studio. Particularly, one’s personal relationship to their mode of inquiry and the ability to confront, pull apart, sit quietly, or embrace their modality of working.
Annually at CLEaR Forum we aim to make a space for possibility, for reflection – the rest and digest for the creative nervous system, and we also seek the gems found in a creative rub or facing hard obstacles. The lab takes place in the beautiful Annapolis Valley near the wondrous Bay of Fundy tides, at a time when the landscape begins to renew and rejuvenate and the local area animals awaken from hibernation. This time of year is a gift for reflective thought and a wonderful metaphor for the coming together of the collective body tending to their own gardens’ of creative practice. In 2025, we move the lab to late Fall. This time of year will be the rest and digest for our creative psyches - laying new ground for possibility.
Sara Coffin is an award-winning dance artist, choreographer, improviser, dance educator and Co-Artistic Director of Mocean Dance.
Sara received the Nova Scotia Established Artist Award from Arts NS in 2018, completed her MFA in Choreography and Performance at Smith College in Northampton, MA (2014), BSc. in Kinesiology from Dalhousie University (2005) and BFA in dance at Simon Fraser University’s School for Contemporary Arts (2003). She has ‘taught’ or facilitated the creative process in an organized construct in the Five College Consortium (Smith College and Hampshire College, Massachusetts), NSCAD University, and Holland College School of Performing Arts (Summerside, PEI). Sara’s work has been presented in many prominent dance venues across Canada including; Dancing on the Edge, Magnetic North/Canada Dance Festival, ROMP!, Dance in Vancouver, and across the Atlantic Provinces.
The process of inquiry, navigating the unknown, and nurturing emergent vocabulary is the main catalyst in her personal choreographic investigation. Sara has sought mentorship and provocation throughout her career, engaging in choreographic labs, workshops, and round-table discussions centralized to the creative gesture. Her studies have led her across the globe dissecting and being inspired by some of the dance field’s most stimulating creators. A list of her study highlights and mentors include: Paul Andre Fortier, Marten Spangbërg, Dana Gingras, Jennifer Mascall, Susie Burpee, Tedd Robinson, Project CPR with Claire French, the Montreal Danse Choreographic Lab with Kathy Casey, Larry Lavender, Philip Szporer, Donna Faye Burchfield (ADF/ Hollins), Chris Aiken, Angie Hauser, and Mike Vargas at Smith College (USA), and the Banff Dramaturgy Program with Ruth Little (UK) and Liz Lerman (USA).
Currently her interests within a making practice centre around: stamina and sustainability, permeability and legibility, the poetics of failure, and courage sought through vulnerability. Fundamentally, Coffin continually notices that she is also the happiest in wild spaces.
2025/26 Guest Creative Facilitator: Angie Cheng
A word from Angie:
I am an artist in dance. I use “in dance” because I have and do wear many hats.
A practice I carry with me throughout is offering support through listening, observation, conversations, and questions. Reflecting back on what I hear and understand as feedback for deeper understanding, or to see what might be emerging. Unfinished, half thoughts, and ideas, mistakes and idea changes and clarifications are welcome. Discussions around your artistic practice, interests, ethics, questions around how you may be working, the work itself, choreography, thoughts and ideas. I offer my support in figuring it out together.
Angie Cheng is a Montreal-based artist in contemporary dance. Collaborative creation processes ground her ongoing research in performance, investigating the liminal space between creative process and performance event. The embodied and specific understandings that arise from these investigations shape her current questions and engagements both in her own work and with others. She supports the projects she is involved in through her practice of deep listening and feedback through gathering perspectives as a way to facilitate group conversations. She is also an advocate and has been actively engaged in the conversations of inclusivity, diversity and accessibility, as well as participating in, co-leading collective actions and activities. It’s not just what we make as artists but how. She is committed to ongoing learning and practicing consent, respect and accessibility: care in how we are together in all that she is engaged in.
We are pleased to work in partnership with CanAsian Dance with our Fall 2025 Lab this year!
This year, with our partnership with CanAsian Dance, we have two designated positions for Asian Diaspora dance artists, which includes travel support from CanAsian Dance.
