Lightening

Lightening is an intriguing work by choreographic legend Deborah Hay, made for top-name freelance dancers from Finland, including Jyrki Karttunen. The choreography was first given as a sketch to the dancers who through their performance create the choreography. In each performance, the dancers have their perceptions challenged over again as they make ingenious, lightning-fast choreographic decisions in response to changing spatial and temporal circumstances. Rather than attempting to tell just one story, the work deliberately occupies the here-and-now, remaining open in all directions simultaneously.

Deborah Hay trained with Mia Slavenska and Merce Cunningham. Hay was one of the founding members of the legendary Judson Dance Theater. In the 1970s, Hay started developing her set of practices (“playing awake”) that engage the performer on several levels of consciousness at once. In the late 1990s Deborah Hay focused almost exclusively on rarified and enigmatic solo dances, performing them around the world. Hay’s work is now at a stage where she redefines her inimitable choreographic method in collaboration with highly trained dancers.