|
Brainchild of creative force Deborah Hay, the Solo Performance Commissioning Project (SPCP) was held in Findhorn, Scotland from September 1 - 11, 2004. Twenty-one artists from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland and America gathered to learn a solo dance.
The Project
In the SPCP all participating artists commission the same solo choreographed by Deborah Hay. As part of the SPCP's commitment to involve the larger community in the process of art creation, the commissioning fee must be raised through donations. Following the work session in Scotland, each artist agrees to practice the solo every day for a minimum of three months prior to the first public performance of the solo.
The Process
Ms. Hay's choreography instantiates as a series of questions to be answered through performance, rather than as a series of tightly constructed physical steps or movements. The choreography exists as a roadmap of directives which engage the performer in a process of inquiry into the body's ability to perceive the "uniqueness and originality" of all there is. Hay says, "My perception is the dance." With this practice of perception serving as a technique of performance, the artist develops an individual approach to dancing the choreographed solo. From this daily practice, each of the 21 participants crafts an individual adaptation of the dance to be shared through performance.
The Experience
The influence of Hay's work and ideas came at a most auspicious time to my own evolving dance making process, furthering my own experiments with the play between the movement score and the performance, shedding light on a performance approach based on the immediacy of perception. My adaptation of The Ridge placed the performances in the town center of Burlington, Vermont, on the bustling weekend mornings of summer, a perfect culmination to the year-long study and practice of perceiving unique and original everywhere.
About Deborah Hay
A pioneer of the post-modern dance movement and early member of the Judson Dance Theater, Ms. Hay's work has spanned more than four decades. From 1998 to 2002, Deborah Hay conducted the SPCP on Whidbey Island in Washington State. In 2004, in addition to SPCP Scotland, Deborah Hay also held a SPCP in Helsinki, Finland. Later that year, Deborah Hay was awarded a New York Dance and Performance Award (BESSIE) for her group work The Match. The solo dance offered for the 2004 Scotland SPCP was Hay's solo adaptation of The Match, entitled The Ridge.
For more info on SPCP and Deborah Hay, visit http://www.deborahhay.com.
|