Deborah Hay, Laurie Anderson, Cullberg Ballet Unite for FIGURE A SEA

Deborah Hay, a founding member of Judson Dance Theater, is one of the most radical and influential choreographers of our time. Where else but Peak Performances to present the US Premiere of her new work, Figure a Sea Set to a score by legendary electronic music pioneer Laurie Anderson and performed by 20 dancers of Sweden's adventurous Cullberg Ballet, Figure a Sea makes its US Premiere October 6th through October 9th at Peak Performances, which has become the new home for the best in modern dance.

"Figure a Sea is a meditation on seeing. Seeing music, fleeting incidences, synchronicities, copious input points, collectivity, surprise. It is a space for self-reflection: for seeing oneself seeing," says Deborah Hay. Laurie Anderson's haunting sound scape provides the spine for this gorgeous, minimalist dreamscape, which has been described as "60 minutes of purity, beauty and body."

Mikhail Baryshnikov has called Hay "the queen of...internal commitment in improvisation." That commitment, courage and skill informs this work as she poses questions to the dancers-and the audience. "How do you not get seduced by the center of the space? How do you enliven The Edges of the space?" The audience is complicit in the seduction-and the enjoyment.

Cullberg Ballet, founded in 1967, is known worldwide for its fearless investigation of new dance terrain and its flawless execution. Cullberg Ballet invited Deborah Hay to give a two-week workshop and later Artistic Director Gabriel Smeets asked Hay to create a work for the company. "A creation by Deborah Hay for a big Dance Company, using all the advantages of its big machinery and challenging size is rarely seen," Smeets says. "I felt something missing from the art form dance, like being in museum where there are no Jackson Pollocks and Rauschenbergs. This piece just had to be made and I was in the position to ask Deborah Hay to make it." When Figure a Seawas performed at the Tanz Festival in Berlin, Berliner Zeitung raved, "So young, so fresh, so awake... contemporary dance like this is seldom seen."

If the body itself is a sea, it's a sea is a possibility in Deborah Hay's capable hands and Cullberg Ballet's beautiful bodies. Lighting Design is by Minna Tiikainnen; Sound Design is by Martin Ekman; Costume Design is by Marita Tjarsnstrom.

On Thursday, October 6th, there will be a pre-show talk with esteemed dance writer Nancy Dalva. It begins at 6pm, includes refreshments and is free to the public.

Honored with a Citation for Excellence from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Peak Performances continues to reward its audience by presenting daring, world class entertainment at an affordable (and astonishing) $20 ticket.

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