Clara Gibson Maxwell is an American choreographer and dancer based in Paris since 1985. Trained at Harvard and the Juilliard School, she develops an interdisciplinary approach combining dance, philosophy, experimental music, and architecture. Influenced by figures such as Anna Sokolow, Antony Tudor, Hanya Holm and Cornelius Castoriadis, she has, in close collaboration with
Ornette Coleman since 1990, extended his “Harmolodic” musical theory to choreography.

First recognized with Ophélie Song (1989), she creates
in situ performances in such premiere architectural venues as La Tourette (Le Corbusier), Taliesin West (Frank Lloyd Wright), and the Daitoku-ji Temple in Kyoto.

Among her major works are Cartesian Studies (1995),
an evening-length piece inspired by the correspondence between Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René
Descartes, premiered in Paris and later performed
at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Massachusetts, and Encuentro-Encuentro (2011), a multiarts, “site-responsive,” and ambulatory work created at the Casa
de la Primera Imprenta de América (1539) and screened internationally from Berlin to Seoul via Montreal,
Mexico City, Naples... A 2017 performance for
the Cátedra Interinstitucional Cornelius Castoriadis became the videodance Thoreau’s Henhawk Visits Mexico that debuted virtually in 2021 at The Thoreau
Society’s Annual Gathering.

In 2015, Maxwell founded the Appalachian Springs Foundation (ASF), an arts-educational organization that embraces an egalitarian vision of the creative process. ASF promotes parity in artistic elements and contributors through initiatives in civic education, the performing and visual arts, somatic practices, and new music. Notable ASF projects include Anagram, an experimental film by Nathaniel Draper, and In Vain, a poetic cinema project by Anastasia Melia Eleftheriou.

Starting in 2025, the foundation is entering into a new partnership by providing financial support to The Film Gallery, thereby strengthening its commitment to experimental cinema. A fervent and inquisitive polymath, Clara Gibson Maxwell continues to enrich and distill her practice through live performance and videodance while supporting multiple experimental projects both in Europe and the US.