The Deborah Hay Dance Company Mission
The Deborah Hay Dance Company's mission is to foster a discerning appreciation for the human body within the cultural construct of contemporary society, through dance as experienced by audience, student, and/or performer. Central to this mission is the role of humor in recognizing the wildly cogent dancer we are capable of exercising into action.
The goals of the DHDC are: to challenge judgments which limit how we identify the physical body in time and space, broadening the traditions of flow, beauty, and form that are currently prevalent in dance, and to expand the cultural concept of “dance” by defining the dancer as a site for inquiry, i.e. a bodily presence trained in the performance of parallel experiences of perception. An outline for advancing this project follows:
1) continue to introduce and explore through teaching and performing, how the cellular body, when invested with imaginative capability, can produce feelings of altering immediacy and gripping relatedness in the sensate body;
2) raise our standard of participating in a world beyond the subjective, where dance can become not just the site where movement and shape are produced, but a threshold where energies shift, multiply, and become visible;
3) expand the notion of choreography to include the conditions by which the choreographer transmits a dance to a performer, accounting for the many and often discontinuous threads within a visible and invisible context for beholding now.
The Deborah Hay Dance Company Board of Directors
Beverly Bajema
Beverly Bajema first met Deborah Hay on tour teaching from her "Moving Through the Universe in Barefeet" in Bellingham, Washington early 1970s. In 1979 Beverly learned "The Grand Dance" from Deborah also in Bellingham. In 1980 Beverly moved to Austin, Texas to dance in Deborah's first large group workshop "HEAVEN / below" followed by her participation in large group workshops lasting 4 months culminating in public performances with practices every weekday morning: "Heavily Laden Fruit", "Grace", "Promenade", "Performance in Four Parts", "The Movement of Light", "Tasting the Blaze", "The Gardener", "The Man Who Grew Common in Wisdom", "The Love Song Project", "Lamb, lamb, lamb…", "Lamb at the Altar", and a sextet based on the Tower of Babel, and "my heart". Beverly and Deborah created "Living Room Duet"and led choreography workshops concurrent with large group workshops for performers to create their own work. After learning "Music" at the Solo Performance Commissioning Project 2001 on Whidbey Island Beverly performed her adaptation of the solo in an evening of adaptations by Allison Orr, Steve Ausbury, and Deborah Hay in Austin. Currently she is delving into Continuum Movement and Authentic Movement.
Claudia Boles
Anna Carroll
Anna Carroll, MSSW, is an Austin, TX based organizational consultant specializing in human performance tools, facilitation and development of leaders and groups, and training design. She applies motivational formats to address leadership, quality, strategy, feedback, and many other organizational initiatives. She is a recognized innovator in identifying future trends affecting the workplace. Carroll completed her undergraduate work at Sarah Lawrence College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received an MSSW from the University of Texas at Austin. Through her consulting practice at Interaction Design, Inc., she has worked with clients such as American Electric Power, Applied Materials, Austin Regional Clinic, Dell Computer, Doosan (Korea), GE, Starwood Hotels, University of Texas Center for Instructional Technology, TECO-Westinghouse, and Zimmer, Inc. Carroll has a longstanding personal interest in music and dance, and has served on the DHDC board since 2002.
Will Dibrell
Dibrell is an attorney with the Austin firm of Graves Dougherty Hearon & Moody. Will is an avid appreciator and devoted supporter of performing arts in Austin.
Emily Little
As a fan of space and light, it has been my supreme pleasure to serve on the Board of the Deborah Hay Dance Company for many years. Deborah’s work has inspired my career as an architect in innumerable ways. I have practiced in Austin for 28 years, with a focus on the renovation and adaptive reuse of existing buildings. Seeing the built environment in new ways is what I do; imagining what could be rather than what is. Deborah’s work is interwoven delightfully through it all.
Sherry Smith
Since 1980, when she joined the Texas Women’s History Project as Photography & Art Curator, Sherry has integrated her profession with her personal interests. Three years later, she became the PR Director at Laguna Gloria Art Museum (now AMOA), then spent several years at Sherry Matthews Advocacy Marketing. In 1989, she launched her business, Sherry Smith Marketing Partner. In multiple roles as marketing strategist, creative director, copywriter, account supervisor, media maven and production manager, she provides marketing and public relations services for businesses, public agencies and nonprofit organizations.
Sherry co-founded the Breast Cancer Resource Center (BCRC) in 1995 and served on its board for many years. In addition to her current board service for the Deborah Hay Dance Company, she is on the board of Women & Their Work and is a member of the Emeritus Board of the BCRC.
Sydney Yeager
Sydney Yeager lives in Austin, Texas and works in her studio in nearby Elgin. She received a BFA, an MFA, and a BA, all from the University of Texas, Austin. Her work is presently represented by DBerman Gallery, Austin, by Holly Johnson Gallery, Dallas, and by McMurtrey Gallery, Houston. Her work is included in permanent collections of Austin Museum of Art, El Paso Museum of Art, Tyler Museum of Art, Art Museum of South Texas, American Airlines, Samsung, Neiman Marcus, and the Belo Collection, among others. In January 2005 Yeager was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome. Her visit there was funded by grants from Texas Commission on the Arts and a City of Austin Cultural Arts Grant. During 2003-4, a ten year survey of Yeager’s work toured Texas, traveling to Arthouse in Austin, The Gallery at University of Texas, Arlington, Tyler Museum of Art, The Grace, Abilene, and The Galveston Arts Center. In 1996, Yeager had a solo exhibit at Austin Museum of Art titled Body/Language: Art in Process. This innovative exhibit included an open working studio space and on online email “q and a”. Also in 1996, Yeager was awarded a Mid America Arts Alliance Grant. Her work was included in New American Painting, 1995, 2001, and 2003and 2008. Non-profit spaces which have featured Yeager’s work include Women & Their Work, Austin, Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio, Glassel School , Houston, and D Arts Center for Visual Arts, Dallas. Yeager has taught at Austin Community College and Austin Museum of Art since 1989. She has also had visiting artist positions at Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas State University, San Marcos, and University of Texas, Austin.
Advisory Board
Jack Brannon
Annette Carlozzi
Susan Cassano
Chris Cowden
Ann Daly
Deborah Elliott
Betty Sue Flowers
Saundra Goldman
Sue Graze
Mark Holzbach
Joni Jones
Saundra Kirk
Margaret Keys
Randy Lusk
Rino Pizzi
Diana Prechter
Judith Sims
Robyn Turner
