Cullberg/Deborah Hay ^(SWE/USA) The Match & The man who grew common in wisdom 8-10 October 2019

Programme

For the next three years, Deborah Hay will be associated with Cullberg and during that period she will create two new works for the company. Tonight's two performances are, however, two existing works, both of which have been talked about and praised. Welcome to an evening where dance history meets 2019.

The man who grew common in wisdom

The Man Who Grew Common in Wisdom was created in 1986 when Deborah Hay herself danced the piece. "Deborah Hay makes simplicity expressive in her three-part solo"wrote The New York Times in 1989. For Hay, wisdom becomes the material experience of well-being in the ordinary world.

The new production for the Cullberg dancers Eva Mohn is a co-production between Cullberg, Tanz im August / HAU Hebbel am Ufer and DHDC Deborah Hay Dance Company.

The match

The work is a multi-layered quartet; four different solos presented in a different order each time - each performance focuses on one solo. The Match has been described as a fun and quirky work, which "a fascinating and vibrant battle of wits".

The work premiered in February 2004 at Danspace 51 St Mark's Church in New York. It was created for a select group of experienced dancers and artists: Ros Warby from Melbourne, Australia, Chrysa Parkinson and Watly Cardona, New York City and Mark Lorimer, London.
In the same year it was honoured "The Match" with a BESSIE award/New York Dance and Performance Award 2004, which states: "a strange, peculiar and unrelenting meditation on decay that explores worlds from the ordinary to the absurd with four alternating characters."

Cullberg's production of 'The Match' will premiere at the Tanz im August in Berlin in August 2019, as part of the german festival retrospective of Deborah Hay's life's work.

About the choreographer

Deborah Hay

Deborah Hay, born in 1941 in Brooklyn, has achieved iconic status among choreographers. Her work was formulated in the experimental Judson Dance Theatre in New York in the 1960s, one of the most radical and influential postmodern art movements.

Hay's work focuses on reclaiming the body's reliance on learned behaviour by widening the field from which a dancer can take their movements. She spent many years choreographing solo works for artists such as, among others. Mikhail Baryshnikov. Choreographers William Forsythe gave a boost to her international career after having seen the The Match 2005 at the Montpellier Dance Festival.

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 of Chevallier de L'Ordre des Arts et Des Lettres by France's Minister of Culture and Communication.

In 2015, Deborah Hay created Figure a Sea directly for the Cullberg Ballet with music by Laurie Anderson. One of the company's most acclaimed works, it has toured the US and across Europe and been presented at prestigious festivals such as Montpellier Danse and the International Festival of Contemporary Dance of the Biennale of Venice 2018.