THE RIDGE
Choreography Deborah Hay
Adaptation and performance Soile
Lahdenperä
Sound Ville Hukkinen
Lights Tarja Ervasti
Deborah Hay is a pioneer of postmodern dance.
She was involved in the Judson Theater
movement in the early 1960s in New York. Her work has included communal dances
to company concerts. Since the mid-nineties she has focused on solo dances,
performing them around the world and passing them to dancers in the US, Europe
and Australia. She has written books Moving
Through the Universe in Bare Feet (1975), Lamb at the Altar: The Story of a Dance (1994) and My Body, the Buddhist (2000).
Soile Lahdenperä is a renowned choreographer, dancer
and pedagogue. She is a founder member on Dance Theatre Hurjaruuth, Zodiak and
Suomussalmi Group. She has studied and performed in Finland, USA, Holland and
England. Soile Lahdenperä's broad combination of different contemporary
dance techniques and The Alexander Technique results in her distinct movement
style, which unlocks the possibilities and strengths of body and mind.
Ville Hukkinen is musician who has played
percussions and keyboards in wide range of bands. He did MA in music at
Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and continued his studies in Senegal, Tanzania,
Cuba and New York. He is also the founder member of music and dance
improvisation group Suomussalmi Group.
Tarja Ervasti is light designer who has designed
lights for theatre and dance productions since 1980's. She has also done
environmental art with light. She studied light at the Theatre Academy in
Helsinki and at Yale School of Drama.
About The Ridge
American choreographer Deborah Hay taught her solo choreography The
Ridge for 21 dancers at the first European Solo Performance Commissioning
Project at Findhorn, Scotland 1.-11. of September 2004. The dancers were from
United Kingdom, Ireland, United States and Finland. After three months of daily
practice of the solo performance the dancer may perform her/his adaptation to
public.
The choreography has a structure in the space. It has directives and
images like smoke and love song or a repeated, spunky, illustrative,
children's-toy utterance. It has questions. Hay is saying that the focus is on
the question rather than an answer. The important questions are; What if my
dance is original and unique? What if my 73 trillion cells have the potential
to perceive time and space now? My perception is the dance.
From Deborah Hays internet page www.deborahhay.com
The Solo Performance
Commissioning Project developed from the growing necessity to encourage communities to support
artists and their growth.
The project's goal has been to: further professional training for
performers; - provide community access to new directions in performance; - help
artist and community to work together for the enhancement of their cultural
life and traditions.
Beyond the exchange between Hay and the artists, the residency is based
on a commitment to involve the larger community in the process on art creation.
The commissioning fee is sought by the artist from his or her community and
must not come from the performer's private resources.... All patrons receive
acknowledgment every time the solo is performed by any of the participating
artists.
Deborah Hay's orientation to dance is activated
by attention to practices of performance. In an intense learning environment
she challenges the experienced performer with movement concepts that trigger
multiple levels of perception at once. She choreographs the world 'between'
moments, where movement proclivity plays second fiddle to exercised inquiry.
...
Hay rarely demonstrates solutions to the choreography. Rather, she
conveys her concepts through directives that each performer translates
individually into movement in his/her unique way. As part of the process, the
artist is bound to the material through meditation-like exercises that are
applied throughout the choreographed dance.