Deborah Hay, Solo

Solo of Deborah Hay, represented on 13 and 23 October 1966, is not strictly a solo but a choreographic show for 16 dancers, 8 unmanned platforms and their operators.

Solo by Deborah Hay, performed on October 13th and 23rd 1966, is not really a solo but rather a choreographic work for 16 dancers, 8 tele-guided platforms and their operators. However, each dancer seems to follow a solitary path that only episodically crosses that of the others, when he/she is not alone on a platform.

At the origin of this performance is a trip to Japan, made during a tour with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Impressed by Noh theatre, Deborah Hay wished to integrate into her work the slowness, simplicity and suspension specific to the Japanese tradition. The dancer, who has regularly collaborated with Steve Paxton, Robert Rauschenberg and her husband Alex Hay, offers here one of the most minimalist performances of 9 Evenings. However, its minimalism does not lack humour. At the edge of the track, a conductor directs the operators responsible for controlling the platforms on which the dancers rise up or sink down. Seated beneath giant antennas, these operators assume the appearance of impassive typists. As for the dancers, they seem to form a cloud of atoms with an uncertain trajectory. Their economy of movement reaches its climax when it is the platforms that move them across the stage, dignified as Apollos or stiff as planks.