Deborah Hay

Interview conducted virtually by Lotte Johnson on October 25, 2023

Deborah Hay is a dancer, choreographer, and writer based in Austin, Texas. Hay was a founding member of Judson Dance Theater where she collaborated with Schneemann in the performances Newspaper Event (1963), Chromelodeon (Fourth Concretion) (1963), and Lateral Splay (1963). After moving to Austin, Texas in 1976, Hay developed the choreographic method playing awake, which she documented in her book Lamb at the Altar: The Story of a Dance (1994) and performed in solo dances like “Music” (2001), “Beauty” (2002), and “The Ridge” (2004). Hay was the recipient of the 1981 Guggenheim Fellowship as well as the 2012 Doris Duke Artist Award. She has notably collaborated with Robert Rauschenberg (“Map Room II,” 1965, “Spring Training,” 1965), Mikhail Baryshnikov (“Single Duet,” 2001), and Laurie Anderson (“Figure a Sea,” 2015).

In this excerpt, Hay speaks about the radical experience of dancing in Schneemann’s pieces in the early days of Judson Dance Theater.