Deborah Hay

Deborah Hay is a dancer and choreographer. She moved to Manhattan in the 1960s and learned from the contemporary dance makers of the time including touring with the Merce Cunningham Company, training with Mia Slavenska, and experiencing the work of colleagues at Judson. During this time Hay focused on creating large-scale dance projects involving untrained dancers, fragmented and choreographed music accompaniment and the execution of ordinary movement patterns performed under stressful conditions. She later distanced herself from public performance to explore the transmission of dance and consciousness. Her 1997 performance of Viola at The Kitchen exemplifies her work with scores and how the same document can have diverse interpretations through multiple bodies. After working primarily with untrained dancers and herself through solo projects, Hay began working with more traditionally trained dancers in the early 2000s, a practice she continues today.