Deborah Hay | Screening & Conversation

Women & Their Work is pleased to host the iconic choreographer Deborah Hay in conversation and for an exclusive preview of the film in progress, Dear Dancer.

Archivist, choreographer, and dancer Laurent Pichaud will begin the evening with an image-based interview of Hay based on her extensive archives. Pichaud will ask Hay to respond spontaneously to imagery he has pulled from the archives which Hay may not have seen for decades. These prompts will center on Austin, exploring Hay’s perspective as an artist and woman living and working in the city since 1976. Hay’s archives have recently been acquired by the Harry Ransom Center.

Following the discussion, we will share an exclusive preview of the film in progress, Dear Dancer, a new film from award-winning director Marcus Lindeen, the Guldbagge Award-winning film photographer Ita Zbroniec-Zajt, composer Hans Appelqvist, and producer Jesper Kurlandsky.  The 22-minute film follows Hay’s struggle to present her new work, Horse, the solos during a global pandemic. The music for the dance was composed by Graham Reynolds, lights and set by Minna Tikkainen. The work was scheduled to premiere at Dansens Hus in Stockholm, SE, but was cancelled due to last minute COVID restrictions. Instead the dancers from the Cullberg Company in Stockholm, SE, in costume with lights and sound, performed the work without a single person in the theater. Lindeen captures how Hay worked remotely with dancers in Sweden and prepared them to perform and reflects on what it means to work as a dancer and perform in a time that does not seem to allow it.

Deborah Hay is an internationally renowned dance artist whose unique approach to movement and the body has had a lasting impact on American choreography. Her commitment to dance as a process remains challenging and thought-provoking. Rooted in the 1960s experimental Judson Dance Theater in New York, of which Hay was a founding member, her work has evolved through experimentation with a unique language.