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2025: DIDIDADA

A long-weekend dance camp at Forest Fringe Farm created and led by Coco. DIDIDADA brings physicality, play and catharsis into everyday life through follow-along movement and guided improvisation, drawing on somatic practice, Caribbean dance, dance aerobics, modern and avant-garde forms, gym class games and family rituals. Campers moved alone, with partners and as a group, wrote and drew, breathed deeply, rested between sessions and slept in tents under the trees and blueberry bushes.

2024: Earthly Pleasures

This weekend camping residency at Forest Fringe Farm took its name from the farm as a sensuous place. The cohort came mostly from New York and Toronto and slept outside, close to the ground. The days moved through the body with a meditation class, a dance and movement class and three meals made from early summer vegetables and blueberries from our own bushes. Pleasure shaped everything we did.

2022: Work in Wellness

A residency for artists who needed care, built around the body and its needs. Artists spent their days outdoors and chose their own care plans, so every kind of support was something they agreed to and shaped themselves. Care and wellness are easy to overlook in the art world, and this program put them at the center, with no expectation that anyone make work while they were here.

2020: Respite as Resistance

Five weekends of rest in 2020 for artists and activists who had been protesting since the murder of George Floyd. A different cohort came each weekend, held by a team of fifteen facilitators and staff, with a private evening performance for each group. When our care practitioners told us they were tired, we cut their sessions so they could rest too.

Testimonials

"Activation Residency opened my orbit to a level of care that is tender and pure. I wasn't sure what I was walking into, and having left the weekend feeling recharged and loved, I ultimately didn't know I needed something as special as this to get a better understanding of how we extend care to others, but also to our caretakers." Zenat Begum · 2020

"Activation Residency is a rare space that actually shows up for community care. Every aspect of the residency is made with so much intention, safety, and vibrance. This space offered a balance of solo rest and play while creating time for connection. I feel completely changed by this experience." Annika Hansteen-Izora · 2020

"My time at Activation Residency was transformational. That weekend affirmed for me that we can create a radically healing community by gathering together with open hearts, clear communication, and healing intentions. As a Black femme I rarely feel safe to show up fully as myself. But at Activation Residency, I felt and witnessed acceptance, safety, and healing." Rochelle Wilbun · 2020

2019: Artists-in-residence

Okcandice

Jill Ryder

Kuwilileni Hauwanga

Jasmine Christina Green

Tough Gossamer

Dylan Mitro

Harrison Tenzer

Jennifer Saparzadeh

Monica Martinez

JJ Mcdonald

Sara Melvin

David Courtright

Helen Chu

Taylor Alicia

Julie Byrne

Alex Koones

Meenadchi

242

Rosemary Engstrom

Melissa Z M Alcena

Angel Edwards

Cy X

Mae Howard

Hillary Ruby Rose Donnell

Sabrina Pantal

Ivanna Baranova

Ingrid Raphael

Bianca Nozaki-Nasser

ACTIVATION RESIDENCY

slow work