Deborah Hay’s Latest Book: Using the Sky

I just finished Deborah Hay's latest book, Using the Sky: A Dance. Routledge published the paperback version in 2016.

I know Deborah as a famous figure within the Judson Church crowd. I do not know her by face. My only experience of her work, experienced live, was probably 10 to 12 years ago here in the San Francisco Bay Area; Evangel King performed a memorizing solo score of Deborah's.

After reading Using the Sky, I have gained a small window into her process, continuous questioning and rigor, and the form her work has taken over the past decade. I feel like she opened up her journal to us. There is a sense of vulnerability and assuredness at the same time. I hope to meet Deborah one day and to experience her process in person.

To share some of the quotes that are resonating for me right now:

I am fascinated with how a choreography of language, using as few words as possible, can inspire experimentation that expands a dancer's movement resources and performance potential (3).

Hay talks about a variety of paths (6):

A continuity of continuity

A discontinuity of continuity

A continuity of discontinuity

My standard for success is when a choreographer no longer spends an inordinate amount of energy looking for opportunities to perform. Instead presenters find the choreographers they think will impact their audiences" (28).

It is possible to remove the angst from the desire to create original and unique movement if you understand that "original" and "unique" pertain to how you perceive your moving body in time and space rather than to what movement you are making with the body" (29).

Quoting dancer Layard Thompson, "What if front is everywhere?" (30)

The rigor is for the dancer to persistently renew his/her questions rather than conform to the dance's guidelines (32).

I encourage choreographers and performers alike to check out Using the Sky. As I have been searching for and reading books on choreography throughout the past year, I feel this book goes nicely with

A Choreographic Mind by Susan Rethorst

A Choreographer's Handbook by Jonathan Burrows

The Place of Dance by Andrea Olsen

To read more from artists who have worked with Deborah Hay, click on any of the artist profiles (previously published on this blog) here:

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