solo commissioning project

From 1998 through 2002 Deborah Hay conducted the Solo Performance Commissioning Project on Whidbey Island, at the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts, in Washington State.

In August, 2004, the SPCP Helsinki was held in Helsinki, for performers from Finland and Northern Europe.

In September 2004, 2005 and 2006 the SPCP British Isles took place at Findhorn, Scotland, and it will take place there again from August 29 through September 7, 2007.

For information and registration for the SPCP Findhorn 2007, contact Gill Clarke, gclarke@easynet.co.uk

WHAT IS THE SOLO PERFORMANCE COMMISSIONING PROJECT?

Dancers commission a solo dance from Deborah Hay. She guides and coaches them in the performance of the solo during an 11-day period in a residency setting. At the conclusion of the residency each participant signs a contractual agreement to a daily solo practice of the new piece, for a minimum of three months before their first public performance.

What is unique about this project is that the dancers must raise the commissioning fee from within his/her community. This becomes the selection process by which a performer attends the SPCP. Community, whether family, friends, local, state, or national granting agencies, corporations, become the patrons for each dance. All patrons receive program acknowledgment every time the solo is performed by any of the participating dancers. Divided over nine SPCP, about 150 dancers commissioned a total of nine original dances. The total number of patrons, divided among the nine dances, is over 1,500.

The Aesthetic Preferences and Artistic Orientation of the Performer in the Solo Commissioning Project Conceived by Deborah Hay

This list can help determine whether the SPCP is applicable to you as a practitioner of movement and/or performance art, including acting. Those not familiar with my work should consider each item and determine whether these attributes are ones either already familiar to you and/or ones you wish to conscientiously exercise.

"Through her courageous choreographic and performance practice, remarkable language and immediate presence, Deborah has touched and stimulated the most essential places in my artistic expression, encouraging the integration of every aspect of my performing self with my dance. And here I remember the pleasure in dance. I experience an availability, a flexibility, a wholeness rarely evoked through any other form - touching on my child, adult, fool, craftsman, artist and essential nature - accessing a very alive and ready state from which to work." - Ros Warby, dancer/choreographer

"At a time in my career when I was feeling stagnant, Deborah's work reintroduced me to my own dancing; to dance as a living thing. Her gentle and powerful focus in teaching cuts through old patterns and internal obstacles with fierce intellect and compassion, leaving me amazed to discover myself. Learning and dancing Beauty was like having the top of my head opened to the whole sky." Emily Stein, dancer/choreographer

"Deborah creates an atmosphere with which one can playfully and thoughtfully study the phenomenon of performance while enabling one to freely learn through their own experiences, the subtleties and largeness of art-making and one's presence within it." Amelia Reeber, dancer/choreographer

"Deborah has taught me to notice the physical presence of my favorite things about being a human being, and that they themselves, not representations of them, can be the material for choreography because I am an agent for their physicality. To me, this really is an invention that I have never seen or felt before. And I feel it before I know it because of everything about the Solo Performance Commissioning Project: Deborah's choreography, her teaching strategies, the use of our time." Kathryn Johnson, dancer/choreographer

From 1998 through 2002 Deborah Hay conducted the Solo Performance Commissioning Project on Whidbey Island, at the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts, in Washington State. In August, 2004, the SPCP Helsinki was held in Helsinki, for performers from Finland and Northern Europe. In September 2004, 2005 and 2006 the SPCP British Isles took place at Findhorn, Scotland, and it will take place there again from August 29 through September 7, 2007. For information and registration for the SPCP Findhorn 2007, contact Gill Clarke, gclarke@easynet.co.uk WHAT IS THE SOLO PERFORMANCE COMMISSIONING PROJECT? Dancers commission a solo dance from Deborah Hay. She guides and coaches them in the performance of the solo during an 11-day period in a residency setting. At the conclusion of the residency each participant signs a contractual agreement to a daily solo practice of the new piece, for a minimum of three months before their first public performance. What is unique about this project is that the dancers must raise the commissioning fee from within his/her community. This becomes the selection process by which a performer attends the SPCP. Community, whether family, friends, local, state, or national granting agencies, corporations, become the patrons for each dance. All patrons receive program acknowledgment every time the solo is performed by any of the participating dancers. Divided over nine SPCP, about 150 dancers commissioned a total of nine original dances. The total number of patrons, divided among the nine dances, is over 1,500. please click HERE to see the patron's list for the 2005 solo, "Room." The Aesthetic Preferences and Artistic Orientation of the Performer in the Solo Commissioning Project Conceived by Deborah Hay This list can help determine whether the SPCP is applicable to you as a practitioner of movement and/or performance art, including acting. Those not familiar with my work should consider each item and determine whether these attributes are ones either already familiar to you and/or ones you wish to conscientiously exercise. _Your ability to laugh at your serious intentions at any given moment is a tool you like to remember to use. _You have explored "self-expression" and found it limiting as a means to create performance continuity. _You are drawn to explore movement in all its variety - either through a cultivated or ingrained absence of discrimination. _You are not content with partial practice. _You want your process to be continually challenged. _Your respect for the intelligence of your whole body is unqualified. _In performance, your non-attachment to professional training in dance or techniques in acting is a source of on-going insight, and delight. _You are without fear of appearing foolish in your capacity to violate form in order to recognize where and why it exists. _Integral to your experience of performance is an inclusive regard for the presence of your audience. _You are becoming or already are skilled at monitoring your own performance. What this means is you have developed a capacity to witness yourself from more than one perspective at once, not as a judge but a guide in the practice of attention. "Through her courageous choreographic and performance practice, remarkable language and immediate presence, Deborah has touched and stimulated the most essential places in my artistic expression, encouraging the integration of every aspect of my performing self with my dance. And here I remember the pleasure in dance. I experience an availability, a flexibility, a wholeness rarely evoked through any other form - touching on my child, adult, fool, craftsman, artist and essential nature - accessing a very alive and ready state from which to work." - Ros Warby, dancer/choreographer "At a time in my career when I was feeling stagnant, Deborah's work reintroduced me to my own dancing; to dance as a living thing. Her gentle and powerful focus in teaching cuts through old patterns and internal obstacles with fierce intellect and compassion, leaving me amazed to discover myself. Learning and dancing Beauty was like having the top of my head opened to the whole sky." Emily Stein, dancer/choreographer "Deborah creates an atmosphere with which one can playfully and thoughtfully study the phenomenon of performance while enabling one to freely learn through their own experiences, the subtleties and largeness of art-making and one's presence within it." Amelia Reeber, dancer/choreographer "Deborah has taught me to notice the physical presence of my favorite things about being a human being, and that they themselves, not representations of them, can be the material for choreography because I am an agent for their physicality. To me, this really is an invention that I have never seen or felt before. And I feel it before I know it because of everything about the Solo Performance Commissioning Project: Deborah's choreography, her teaching strategies, the use of our time." Kathryn Johnson, dancer/choreographer
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		WORKING WITH DEBORAH HAY 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. With the Solo Performance Commissioning Project all participating artists commission the same solo dance choreographed by Deborah Hay. 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. In the latter half of the SPCP each artist is personally coached in his/her performance of the dance, with everyone present. Ultimately the solo is adapted by each performer through a period of practice that extends into the months following the project.