Cullberg & Deborah Hay Live calls 30 March 2021

Programme

This week would "Horse", Deborah Hay's new work for Cullberg has premiered on our main stage. The work is currently being finalised inside the Dansens Hus stage, but the public meeting will have to wait until the pandemic releases its grip on us all.

But instead of live, we will invite you to other public meetings with Deborah Hay and Cullberg.

Exclusive live interview with Deborah Hay

On Tuesday 30 March at 19:00, we will host an exclusive live conversation with iconic choreographer Deborah Hay. Hear her talk about working on a piece remotely and what it's like to communicate art from quarantine.
The conversation is moderated by Andrea Redmer Dansens Hus and Deborah talks with Jeanine Durning from Cullberg and Johannes Öhman Theatre Director Dansens Hus.

About Horse

Choreographer Deborah Hay's new work Horse for Cullberg was to have premiered at the Dance and Theatre Festival in Gothenburg last summer and was then planned to be shown at Dansens Hus in the autumn of 2020. But due to the pandemic, a new performance date was set for mid-March 2021. But even now the pandemic is getting in the way and the public meeting will have to wait. But not the dance. Because right now Cullberg is rehearsing at full speed on our stage and the premiere will take place as planned during week 12, but in front of an empty theatre. The stage version of Horse is now planned to take place at Stora Teatern in Gothenburg in the autumn of 2021.

Cullberg's Associate Choreographer Deborah Hay, who lives in Austin, Texas, has been unable to travel to Sweden throughout 2020 and instead has been working with the dancers in Sweden online, preparing them to perform Horse to an empty theatre in Stockholm. From her home in the US, she has been writing letters to the dancers and reflecting on what it means to work as a dancer and perform in a time that doesn't allow it.

New short film about the work

During the weeks that Cullberg is at Dansens Hus, the shooting of a short film will also start. "Dear Dancer" which deals with the work Horse. It is directed by Marcus Lindeen and the team is made up of Guldbagge Award-winning cinematographer Ita Zbroniec-Zajt, the composer Hans Appelqvist and the producer Jesper Kurlandsky.
- For me, dance is something abstract that is hard to touch. I am more used to working with text and stories. So it will be fun to see what happens when my expression meets a choreographer like Deborah Hay and Cullberg's dancers. Of course, directing will be a challenge due to the pandemic because the dancers cannot be too close to each other and everything needs to be done with restrictions, says Marcus Lindeen.
- "I recently came across Marcus' work and immediately felt that his love of the aesthetics of language and how it translates between characters in film is the same as my own delight in how language affects the whole dancer," says Deborah Hay.

Release date of the film Dear Dancer has not been decided.

About the choreographer

Deborah Hay

Deborah Hayborn in 1941 in Brooklyn, has achieved iconic status among choreographers. Her work was founded in the experimental Judson Dance Theatre in New York in the 1960s, one of the most radical and influential postmodern art movements. Hay focuses her work on expanding the field from which a dancer can take her movements, moving away from learnt patterns.

She spent many years choreographing solo works for artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Hay has received many awards and honours including the first and pioneering Doris Duke Artist Award in 2012. On 5 May 2015, Hay was awarded the title Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture and Communication. In 2015, Deborah Hay created the Figure a Sea directly for Cullberg with music by Laurie Anderson. The work is one of the company's most acclaimed in recent years and has toured in the US and across Europe and been presented at important festivals such as Montpellier Danse and the International Festival of Contemporary Dance of the Biennale of Venice.

Deborah Hay is attached to Cullberg as choreographer 2019-2021.