Learning from Hay

Last evening, as I watched Deborah Hay's No Time To Fly--which has now concluded in its premiere season at Danspace Project--I felt a deepened understanding of how inspired structure and inspiring surrender work together in the process of creation. That was a bonus for taking in Hay's Lecture on the Performance of Beauty last Wednesday at Cooper Union. The opening of the new 50-minute solo in silence seemed to me steeped in remembered music (a foundational structure), and its unfolding or drifting suggested an unpredictable journey of discovery (surrender). Hay's adorableness--I say that, hoping she likes this work's costume better than she liked the original, whimsical costume for Beauty--easily draws us to her and to her project. But, to be sure, this is a formidable master teacher, one who offers artists and all those who treasure art a humble way to approach creativity. Her dancing prompts questioning that we can all take into our practice--as artists, as human beings--for a lifetime.

I am grateful to Danspace Project and to curator Juliette Mapp (PLATFORM 2010: Back to New York City) for...well, for bringing Hay back to New York City.