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Renowned choreographer Deborah Hay will spend two weeks in residence illuminating students on performance, perception, and choreographic techniques.
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What the body can do is less relevant than how a body can stretch its capacity to perceive and attend to the practice of performance.
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Both body and dance are always provisional. They are generative mysteries, constantly reconfiguring themselves through consciousness, perception, and performance.
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Deborah Hay will propose a particular set of propositions directed to the body.
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Once the dancer becomes familiar with how these questions become a vehicle for one’s attention, a second layer, the choreography, will be added.
- The workshop will culminate with an informal showing for the public.
Undergraduate: DANCE 427, 3 units
Graduate: DANCE 627, 3 units
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The workshop is intended for experienced dancers interested in choreography.
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Submit a letter of intention and resume. For those applying for scholarships, include two letters of recommendation.
- Send the materials listed in Step 1 with your completed Registration Form to the Summer Arts Registration Office by Friday, May 15, 2009. THE DEADLINE TO APPLY TO THIS COURSE HAS PASSED.
Professor Karen Schaffman
kschaffm@csusm.edu
760-750-8009
Deborah Hay
Deborah Hay started her dance training with her mother in Brooklyn, and after moving to Manhattan continued her training with Merce Cunningham and Mia Slavenska. Ms. Hay then danced with the Cunningham Dance Company during a 6-month tour through Europe and Asia. Influenced greatly by Merce Cunningham and John Cage, she collaborated with a group of experimental artists to form the Judson Dance Theater, which became one of the most radical and explosive 20th century art movements.
By the late 60s, Ms. Hay had already achieved a prominent status as a young choreographer, and her unique style began to emerge as a distinct voice within the aesthetics of Judson. Sharing with her colleagues the ideas that dance engage with other art forms, and that the artificial distinction between trained and untrained performers be challenged, she focused on large-scale dance projects involving untrained dancers, fragmented and choreographed music accompaniment, and the execution of ordinary movement patterns performed under stressful conditions.
In 1970 she left New York to live in a community in northern Vermont. Soon, she distanced herself from the performing arena, producing ten “Circle Dances,” performed on ten consecutive nights within a single community and no audience whatsoever. Thus began a long period of reflection about how dance is transmitted and presented. Over the years, she wrote three books about dance and the body. She focused her attention on a set of practices ("playing awake") that engaged the performer on several levels of consciousness at once. She choreographed and directed a multitude of pieces including a duet for herself and Mikhail Baryshnikov, Single Duet, which toured with the Past/Forward project in 2000.
Ms. Hay’s work has now reached a new stage, where she redefines the inimitable choreographic method of her solo pieces in collaboration with highly trained dancers. She has collaborated with many artists from different areas, such as composers Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Lucier, Richard Landry, Terry Riley, Ellen Fullman, artist Tina Girouard, and Australian actor/playwright/director Margaret Cameron, among others. She has been the recipient of several grants and fellowships, including a 1983 Guggenheim Fellowship in choreography, numerous National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowships, and the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship in 1996.
Check out her website at: www.deborahhay.com
Deborah Hay started her dance training with her mother in Brooklyn, and after moving to Manhattan continued her training with Merce Cunningham and Mia Slavenska. Ms. Hay then danced with the Cunningham Dance Company during a 6-month tour through Europe and Asia. Influenced greatly by Merce Cunningham and John Cage, she collaborated with a group of experimental artists to form the Judson Dance Theater, which became one of the most radical and explosive 20th century art movements.
By the late 60s, Ms. Hay had already achieved a prominent status as a young choreographer, and her unique style began to emerge as a distinct voice within the aesthetics of Judson. Sharing with her colleagues the ideas that dance engage with other art forms, and that the artificial distinction between trained and untrained performers be challenged, she focused on large-scale dance projects involving untrained dancers, fragmented and choreographed music accompaniment, and the execution of ordinary movement patterns performed under stressful conditions.
In 1970 she left New York to live in a community in northern Vermont. Soon, she distanced herself from the performing arena, producing ten “Circle Dances,” performed on ten consecutive nights within a single community and no audience whatsoever. Thus began a long period of reflection about how dance is transmitted and presented. Over the years, she wrote three books about dance and the body. She focused her attention on a set of practices ("playing awake") that engaged the performer on several levels of consciousness at once. She choreographed and directed a multitude of pieces including a duet for herself and Mikhail Baryshnikov, Single Duet, which toured with the Past/Forward project in 2000.
Ms. Hay’s work has now reached a new stage, where she redefines the inimitable choreographic method of her solo pieces in collaboration with highly trained dancers. She has collaborated with many artists from different areas, such as composers Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Lucier, Richard Landry, Terry Riley, Ellen Fullman, artist Tina Girouard, and Australian actor/playwright/director Margaret Cameron, among others. She has been the recipient of several grants and fellowships, including a 1983 Guggenheim Fellowship in choreography, numerous National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowships, and the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship in 1996.
Check out her website at: www.deborahhay.com
Scott Heron
Scott Heron has worked with Deborah Hay since 1984 when he participated in her large group workshops in Austin, TX. Over the years he has toured as a guest of the Deborah Hay Dance Company and has adapted several of her solos. His own work has been presented extensively in New York at Performance Space 122, Dance Theatre Workshop, and Movement Research. He is a juggler, rope walker and founding member of Circus Amok. He currently lives in New Orleans, where he runs the Sidearm Gallery and performance space.
Check out his website at: www.scottheron.org
Scott Heron has worked with Deborah Hay since 1984 when he participated in her large group workshops in Austin, TX. Over the years he has toured as a guest of the Deborah Hay Dance Company and has adapted several of her solos. His own work has been presented extensively in New York at Performance Space 122, Dance Theatre Workshop, and Movement Research. He is a juggler, rope walker and founding member of Circus Amok. He currently lives in New Orleans, where he runs the Sidearm Gallery and performance space.
Check out his website at: www.scottheron.org
CSU Summer Arts is Hosted by College of Arts and Humanities, Fresno State.