Meet the Artist:
clyde fusei forth
A personal statement:
I sit down to write and I'm pulling the threads of what I want to tell you from a web made of very early mornings, rigorous practices, and little free time. I'm a dancer living in a Zen monastery on a long path towards becoming a monastic. Yesterday I was reflecting on what choreography means in that context, and this morning I am sitting on the front steps during our study hour reading Katagiri Roshi's book about Time (Each Moment is the Universe). His description of time and space seems to be also a description of what it is to practice improvisation. So there's that.
What I also want to tell you is that after 30+ years of making dances and performance installations, and as I approach the 10th anniversary of my second dance company, is that I'm now pretty much exclusively making liturgical dance films. You can find them right here at 10kCreators, for which I am infinitely grateful.
The root of the word liturgy translates as "to serve the public" or simply public service. And I hope the films and supplemental materials do that. Producing performances, rehearsing with a full company, and doing the business of being in the dance world are not things I can do within the context of residential Buddhist training. What I can do is affect space and time with my movement, communicate through that form with the help of excellent collaborators, ask a lot of questions with my body, and offer that to you.
My hope is that reverence is contagious, that pain and suffering are engaged and transmuted, that joy is fully felt when it appears.
I'm finishing these thoughts as I stand at the sewing table where a lot of my work practice takes place. There is something I will want to tell you later about how dancing and sewing are one single thing, but I don't know what it is yet.
Who is clyde?
clyde fusei forth (she/her) is a choreographer, dancer and visual artist whose work activates the space where improvisation and contemplative practice overlap. Over the last 30+ years she has created 18 evening length works and founded two companies, Clyde Forth Visual Theatre (2003-2014) and Lokasparśa Dance Projects (2014 - Present).
Ms. forth earned a Master of Fine Arts from Bennington College and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University. Before relocating to the Hudson Valley of NY from NYC she was on faculty at Eugene Lang College, where she developed and taught interdisciplinary arts courses from 1999 to 2005. She taught in the Theater and Visual Arts departments at SUNY Ulster in Stone Ridge, NY from 2006 to 2013, at Kaatsbaan International Dance Center from 2015 to 2016, and independently until 2023. She has been a guest artist at several colleges and universities including the Bennington College July Program, University of the Arts (Philadelphia), Goucher College (Baltimore), Towson University (Baltimore) and SUNY New Paltz. She currently makes her work and leads movement study at Zen Mountain Monastery where she lives.
Ms. forth began practicing at Zen Mountain Monastery (ZMM) in 2007 and became a formal student of Geoffrey Shugen Arnold Roshi in 2011. In 2015 she received the Buddhist Precepts and the dharma name, fusei (sacred wind). Her study and practice of Zen - and the demanding schedule of the monastery - increasingly informs her work, which currently takes the form of liturgical dance films. The three films she has made to date are Still/Together (2021), Coming and Going (2023) and Death Pushes Life (2023).
She is the recipient of several awards and residencies including a New York State Council on the Arts 2022 Choreographic Commission; Mount Tremper Arts residency, December 2020; ASK for Arts Production Residency at Arts Society of Kingston, 2019; Dance Omi International Choreographers' Residency, Ghent NY, 2005; Artward Bound Residency at Earthdance, through The Field, 2005; Commission Award, Latitude 53 Art Space, Edmonton Alberta, 2001.
Dance films by clyde fusei forth:
Still/Together (2021)
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Choreography and Direction...
clyde forth
Film Production...
Leighann Kowalsky
Dancers in order of appearance...
Christine Bornarth
clyde forth
Kris Seto
Filmed on location at...
Lexington House, Lexington NY
Music...
"Rothko Chapel", 1971
© 1971 Morton Feldman
recorded by the UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus
1991 New Albion Records, Inc.
This project was supported in part by Mount Tremper Arts through their artist residency program, and by numerous individual contributors:
Anonymous (18)
Felicia Ballos
Tom Blake
Jing Chang
Bonnie Dry
Donald and Betty Francisco
Eugene Harris
Karen Ivy
Susan Laporte
Eve Ludwig
Pamela Martin
Chris Maxwell
Phyllis McCabe
Kenneth McKim
Judith Ore
Sharon Penz
Shea Settimi
Special Thanks
Alex Rodriguez, Lexington Arts and Science
Dance Film Association
Michelle Boulé
Ryan Tinkle
© 2021 Lokasparśa Dance Projects/clyde forth, all rights reserved
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Runtime: 24 minutes
Together in solitude. A dance made of stillness enlivens long-empty space.
Still/Together is an invitation for people to enjoy, study and appreciate the tenderness of sharing space together through dance. On the heels of the pandemic, questions about solitude, space, time, and how we share these are our focal point in creating this work. Our aim is to bring the audience into contemplative attention together with the onscreen performers. Light, time and stillness connect the dancers, the space, and the viewer over the duration of the film. This film version of Still/Together was the first component of a project that also included movement workshops and an evening length performance. The live performance was commissioned in 2022 by the West Kortright Centre in East Meredith, NY with the support of a Choreographic Commission grant from New York State Council on the Arts. The choreography in the film also comprised one section of the live performance, originally staged in the former church sanctuary that is now the performance space of WKC. In the film the setting is the post-apocalyptic atmosphere of an empty hotel.
Coming & Going (2023)
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concept, choreography and direction: clyde forth
collaborator:
John Hollandfilm production:
Leighann Kowalskymusic:
Rainer Reeves-Cohen -
ALS is a neuromuscular disorder which, over time, gradually - or sometimes not so gradually - steals our movement from us.
Working as John Holland’s Pilates teacher since 2005, I was in a position to see with him the earliest signs of the onset of symptoms a few years later. Over the time since his diagnosis with ALS, he and I have created an ever evolving duet of sorts.
"Coming and going" in a Buddhist context refers to impermanence, to the reality that all forms arise and pass without anything being gained or lost. In the narrative of this film it also relates to my mundane comings and goings to engage in movement in two particular ways.
Impressions of grief, life force, compassion, distress and tenderness interweave in the movement, seen through Leighann Kowalsky’s editing and enhanced by Rainer Reeves-Cohen’s musical score.
John has been much more than a client always, and has supported my work as a dancer in innumerable ways. This is the first iteration of our film. As we continue to expand it, I hope it will bring useful attention to ALS (and raise money for ALS research) and inspire the practice of compassion, wisdom and awareness as we all inevitably come and go.
The supplemental material includes a video tutorial on Passive Mobilization and Active Mobilization for people living with ALS and other neuro-muscular disorders. It features another friend and client, Mary, who generously allowed our work to be documented so that caregivers, family members and friends of those living with ALS can be involved in care that keeps the joints lubricated, provides relief and from tension, and actually gives back some of the freedom in movement that ALS takes away. As Mary says, “It’s beautiful and incredibly liberating.”
Death Pushes Life (2023)
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choreographed, filmed & edited by clyde forth.
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This film was made at Zen Mountain Monastery as an art practice during the intensified period of Buddhist training known as Ango. The theme of the Ango was Birth and Death.
While studying the Parinibbana Sutta and the Dogen fascicles "Undivided Activity" and "Birth and Death", my choreographic process included walking and observing birth and decay in nature (and in my own body), creating small spontaneous paintings, writing, singing, and improvising with these as scores/structures for dance.
At the closing of the Ango I performed in tandem with the film screening. I welcome you to find your own way of physically interacting with these images and sounds. The basic score is to occupy the black frames and when there is no black frames, to play freely in the whole screen area.
There are supplemental materials including discussion questions and creative prompts for you to use in your own contemplation of impermanence.
Pay What You Can.
Our focus is to make these films available for anyone who would like to access them. So please, pay what you can and know that the money goes back to supporting the artists’ financial wellbeing, funding the cost of production and distribution, and a portion of the funds will be allocated for charitable giving, including Zen Mountain Monastery, ALS Therapy Development Institute and Circle of Friends for the Dying. After you complete your purchase, you will be automatically directed to a payment confirmation page that includes a unique URL to download your materials. We thank you in advance for your purchase!
About the nonprofits these funds support:
Zen Mountain Monastery
Since ancient times, monasteries have been places where seekers could delve deeply into the deepest questions of life and death. Built in the 1920s and 30’s, ZMM was originally a Benedictine monastery and boys’ camp. Now, it offers practitioners from all walks of life a refuge from a culture of distraction and a way to become immersed in Buddhist teachings and practice.
ALS Therapies Development Institute
ALS TDI is the world's foremost drug discovery lab focused solely on ALS. As a nonprofit biotech they operate without regard to profit or politics. Led by drug development experts and people with ALS, their lab is funded by a global network of supporters unified to end ALS. Their mission is to discover and develop effective treatments for ALS.
Circle of Friends for the Dying
The mission of CFD is nothing less than creating a safe, comfortable, home-like space where individuals, with a prognosis of three months or less to live, can dwell in an atmosphere of peace and tranquility at their end of life. Cared for by trained staff and community volunteers, these individuals and their loved ones can be assured of round-the-clock attention to their needs.
Learn more about clyde:
Want to tune into clyde’s work beyond these films? Check out the resources below:
🎧 Listen to “Movement from Center with clyde forth | Ep 8” from THESE LEGS MUST DANCE.
📚 Read articles about dance, spirituality and life by clyde on Medium.
