Sara Coffin
Sara Coffin is an independent dance artist, dance educator and Co-Artistic Director of Mocean Dance. She holds an MFA in Choreography from Smith College (USA), BFA in Dance from Simon Fraser University and Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology from Dalhousie University.
An award-winning dancer and choreographer, her choreographic work has been presented in many prominent dance festivals including: Canada Dance Festival/Magnetic North Theatre Festival, Dances for a Small Stage, Dancing on the Edge and Dance in Vancouver, and her 2011 self-produced work Taking Your Experience for Mine was described by the Georgia Straight as “hauntingly gorgeous.” Creating over thirty dance works, Mocean Dance has commissioned/produced five of her works Body Abandoned (2014), How Short it Is with Anthony Black with 2b Theatre (2015), Standing Alone Facing You (2016), Wild Within (2019), and Utawtiwow Kijinaq - Our Mother's Road with Sarah Prosper (2022). Coffin’s research interests include interdisciplinary collaboration, technology as an extension of the body, contact improvisation, and the poetic junction between vulnerability, resiliency, and courage. Her award credits include Nova Scotia Established Artist Award (2018), the Gretchen Moran Teaching Fellowship (Smith College, 2012-2014), Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award (2009), and BC Emerging Dance Artist Award (2005).
As a dance artist, Sara has worked professionally with Meredith Kalaman, Chris Aiken and Angie Hauser (USA), Annie Kloppenberg (USA), Jennifer Mascall, Daelik (MACHiNENOiSy), Susan Elliott, The Holy Body Tattoo, Claire French, Kinesis Dance, Tilt Sound + Motion and she is a co-founder of the dance collective SiNS (Sometimes in Nova Scotia). Sara has danced with Mocean Dance in works by Serge Bennathan (2015), Danièle Desnoyers (2017), Heidi Strauss (2018) and with Lin Snelling and Guy Cools in rewriting distance (2014, 2021).
An experienced dance educator, Coffin has taught extensively across Canada and in the USA including the five college consortium in Massachusetts; Smith College and Hampshire College; Universidad Rafael Landívar (Guatemala City); Holland College School of Performing Arts (Artist-in-residence, PEI); NSCAD University (visiting lecturer); Boston University (ACDFA); Earth Dance; and Princeton University (visiting artist). Locally, Ms. Coffin teaches at Halifax Dance.
Photo: James MacLean