The Story of O,O

O,O, choreographed and directed by Deborah Hay, presented by Dancespace Project in association with The Baryshnikov Arts Center. St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, New York, January 26–29, 2006.

No matter how abstract or non-literal an artistic work may seem, our fundamental human drive to express and to discover meaning and story in what we experience is always engaged. Non-literal work doesn't force the issue, instead it gives us breathing room to come to terms with images in our own way, and to create our own sense of what we see and hear and feel. Merce Cunningham, who is widely regarded as one of the most abstract of choreographers, said that emotion is always present in dance "because it's a human being doing it. A human being is not an abstract. I think that everything a human does is expressive in some way." In Deborah Hay's O,O, choreographer, dancer, and audience conspire to reflect the world in a bubble, to find the meaning intrinsic in movement, and to make a story of the seemingly random confluence of events.

Hay, who was part of the Judson Dance Theater scene, left New York in 1970 for rural Vermont. Six years later she moved to Austin, Texas where she has been teaching and performing ever since. Today, she continues to inform, transform, and inspire established performers and choreographers. Her recent decision to work with the highest caliber contemporary dancer/choreographers (rather than a mix of professional and amateur performers) has brought her to a new level of artistry, exposure and influence. Her body-based work, deeply rooted in the experiential and perceptual aspects of performance, is created through the ongoing practice of a score that ensures both continuity of form and spontaneity. A profound intelligence is at work in O,O, one tuned into the subtlest perceptions and shifts of human experience.

Unlike the tyrannical rehearsal methods of many choreographers, who develop techniques in order to clone themselves, Hay employs a working process in which the dancers' individuality is essential to the artistic process. She has developed an intriguing choreographic style by requiring performers to pay unremitting attention to a structure of tasks designed to circumvent the trappings of the mind, freeing creative possibilities and allowing access to the personal and universal expression of the human condition through the wisdom of the body. Each task is accomplished through the act of exploration. Grounded in kinesthesia, her method of dance-making releases the imagination of performer and audience alike.

As O,O begins, the performers stand on the perimeter of a large circle that encompasses the stage space. Moving with incremental slowness and little outward action, they look at us, through us, around us, and somehow inside themselves at the same time. The quality of their attention is exquisite, at once receptive and active as they feel their way through each moment. Clearly they are doing the same thing, but each in his or her own way. I wonder what task Hay could have given them to elicit such an individualized yet unified performance. I learned later that they are "perceiving all directions as front simultaneously, surrendering facing a single direction." This is standard Cuningham-speak.

Hay is generous about sharing her working process. She has written three books and numerous articles on the subject, and the role of teacher comes naturally to her. Hay's response to the first question posed in a post-performance discussion is to engage us in the recitation of her poem, printed on the postcard for O,O. "Say O," Hay instructs the audience. "O-O-O," we collectively sound in our chairs. "An old O, before there was a letter," she specifies. We vocalized again, with more nuance and individual variation, searching for the solution to a riddle with no answer. "Say you, before there was a me." "You-you-you," we try. "This is very...