Deborah Hay

American icon dancer, choreographer and author Deborah Hay was born 1941 in Brooklyn. She trained with Merce Cunningham and Mia Slavenska, and she danced with the Cunningham Dance Company in 1964.

Hay belongs to a generation of choreographers who were at the base of Judson Church Movement in New York in the 1960’s where daily life movements became part of the choreography and untrained people became dancers. This was a change in the history of dance. The group, known as the Judson Dance Theatre, became one of the most radical and explosive postmodern 20th century art movements. Hay focused on large scale dance projects, and later almost exclusively on rarified and enigmatic solo dances based on her unique approaches to choreography and performance.

Hay’s experiments continue through ongoing commissions working with highly trained dancers and choreographers.