Spotlight on Ballast Collective: (Un)Common Threads Creativity & Innovation Summit Artists-in-Residence
If you're looking for an example of innovation in local arts, look no further than the Ballast Collective. The musical trio, consisting of Nick Coultas-Clarke (drums,) Ian Foster (piano/synth) and Andrya Duff (dancer/musical manipulation), combines conventional instruments with cutting-edge midi sensor technology, creating a unique, interactive and collaborative experience as each member creates and manipulates sound in real time.
The group came together organically over a common creative spark and what Coultas-Clarke calls a "lightbulb moment." It all started in 2022 when Coultas-Clarke held a release show for his album, produced by Foster. The two started collaborating and Ballast Collective was born, with Duff later joining the fold after meeting Foster on the set of his film "Close to the Bone" (where she did choreography).
"There were a lot of things happening at one time, at that point. And bringing it all together - it felt right, right away," Foster says.
(From left) Ian Foster, Nick Coultas-Clarke and Andrya Duff perform as Ballast Collective.
Since then, Ballast Collective has performed at several events, including their first show at Contact East 2023 at Woody Point. On November 7, we're so delighted to have them join us for our (Un)Common Threads Creativity & Innovation Summit at the Sheraton Hotel in St. John's, where participants will get to witness their creative process first-hand while enjoying an inspiring performance.
We caught up with Nick Coultas-Clarke and Ian Foster to chat about what fuels their collaboration, pushing creative boundaries, and why business and arts have more in common than what people think.
(This interview has been edited for length.)
Business & Arts NL: What sparks creativity for you and what blocks it? How do you deal with these mental/creative blocks when they come up?
Nick Coultas-Clarke: What sparks creativity for me is usually just being immersed in other art forms. I watch movies a lot, or TV, or just experience different types of music, and I tend to pluck and drop from those things. My approach has always been more of a drummer thing, until I released my record in 2022, and that was really the first foray into me being on that side of the creative fold. How I got there really was based on these - which I'm actually using with Ballast - types of drum triggers. It bounces back melodies and chord progressions. So that's how I got into being creative, in more of a musical sense. I always find inspiration in other forms of artwork.
Because there's so many things that are available to you at any given time, whether it's just a large sound bank of any type of sound you can imagine - the amount of choices that you have are overwhelming, and that's usually where I find my blockages come through. So I find the best way for me to spark creativity, when I'm having writer's block, is when I restrict myself. From a drummer's perspective, I start removing drums from the drum kit, or I start reducing the amount of sounds that I have available or certain chord progressions and things like that. Subtracting things is usually where I work my way out of creative blocks.
Ian Foster: I guess the art of it is that kernel of inspiration that triggers something where, in retrospect, you go, "I don't even know where that came from." And you hear that a lot, I think, in writers, where someone comes up with an idea that they then talk about the mystical element of creation...but I think people, at least in music, don't always talk about the craft as much. And I think the craft is the work that goes into it. My father is a woodworker, and it's going to the workbench and just sitting down to work out things and try things. It's a little less glamorous and sexy, maybe, then the mystique of, "Oh, I sat down one night and the candles were lit, and I came up with this beautiful piece of music that became this iconic part of my catalog," (laughs). That obviously is the result, I think, of the craft of sitting down every day and trying stuff - and probably it not working a lot of the time. You try out an idea and you go, "Okay, that was fine," or "That was hilariously bad." And then one day, it's all great and beautiful...but that comes out of the craft of just doing it.
I find leaning into the craft is an antidote to writer's block, because at the end of the day, I think writer's block comes from putting a pressure on yourself to get something done...Another analogy is the marathon. You only run the marathon once, but you train for it for months leading up. You work towards just bettering your craft, bettering the various elements, big and small. And then when that kernel of inspiration strikes, you're going to be able to make the best of it. But you're not expecting every day to be gold.
Ballast Collective are (from left) Ian Foster, Andrya Duff and Nick Coultas-Clarke. Photo: Taylor Bartlett
Business & Arts NL: What do you look for in a creative collaborator and what, to you, makes a collaboration successful?
Nick: The ability to bring out the best in each other and push the boundaries of what we're working on... I've worked with Ian for years. We have a good musical balance of understanding that was built on years of experience with each other. But Andrea coming into the fold....that perspective, I think, really pushed what we're doing and how we're approaching it as well. But ultimately, I think it's just the ability to bring something new, push each other, and kind of get out of a box.
Ian: I think Nick really summed it up there. It's about learning from one another, certainly. Andrea is working in a very different discipline....and brings in different perspectives. That part of collaboration is obviously the allure. We're going to get something different musically because Andrea's in the group...because it's a different perspective, it's a different ear...every time you add a member to anything, you're going to exponentially multiply that life experience and talents. And that's the exciting part of working with anybody.
Business & Arts NL: As creatives and artists, what do you think the private sector has to gain from interacting with the arts sector?
Ian: The number one point to make is that we're far more similar than different...The number of times I tried to describe a conference showcase to someone, and I'm like, "It's sort of like a trade show" - you end up using all the same words that you would hear for any small or mid-sized business...we have to have a lot of the same skills. And I think that more and more we're seeing people understand that. I think there's lots of mystique and PR around being an artist...but really, we ultimately conduct our lives in a similar way, even though obviously the product, for lack of a better term, is perhaps a bit more nebulous - a song versus a storefront item...
Not unlike the artistic collaboration that we're talking about with Ballast, there can be collaborations with artists and businesses - of course, it happens all the time. So summits like this one are an opportunity to get on the ground and demystify a piece of that, when it comes to what people think about artists versus businesses.
Business & Arts NL: Can you offer a bit of a peek as to what participants can expect from Ballast Collective at the summit?
Ian: Ultimately, a live music show is what we are. While there's lots of experimentation going on in the group, the music is accessible, and that's out of nothing other than our own influences and what we like. I wouldn't call it super avant-garde, sonically - it's not atonal, dissonant or any of that stuff. But how we get there is the extra fun journey when it comes to using these sensors. As a group - we've been together going on two years now - the excitement for us is that we barely scratched the surface of what we can do. And every time we add a new element to the show, we probably realize at least another or two more elements that will be coming down the road...
For the conference, participants will get to see a music show, but they'll also get to see how this technology works a little bit as we work that into the live show. And for those who are interested, we are going to take some volunteers...who might want to try on the sensors themselves and see how they work...
We have the ability to make every show unique, and of the event or place that it's happening in, which is part of the appeal for us.
Nick: We have these songs that we already have in place, but we have all the room in the world to improvise around those songs and kind of adapt and work in new things...so it is, in that sense, very improvisational, but still structured.
Ian: One of the things we love most about this group is how malleable it is. It's very name, "Collective," means that we collaborate with other individuals. So we'll have a second dancer as well for this. So it'll be the Ballast quartet more than trio...
We really enjoy leaning into the site specific nature of things when it comes to this group...the group is malleable enough that we're able to not just assess the venue, but actually try to build something that makes specific sense for the site. The Sheraton courtyard is a very different type of venue...our plan is to try to really make something that is unique for that space, for this event.