Cullberg: “Horse, the Solos”
Though only an hour long, Deborah Hay’s Horse, the Solos (2021), set on the dancers of Cullberg (founded in 1967 as the Cullberg Ballet by the late, eminent Swedish choreographer Birgit Cullberg), was difficult to sit through, a meandering, shapeless work that provided few visual pleasures and even fewer moments of human interaction. Hay provided a Choreographer’s Note to explain how Horse was painstakingly produced during the recent Covid Pandemic, created on the dancers via instructions communicated by computer screens and a trusted rehearsal director. Hay stated, “Horse, the Solos" relies on two common attributes of survival, risk and efficiency.” Her opaque, overly intellectual analysis is a product of her years in the world of avant-garde dance, the Judson Dance Theater and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. The dry, boring dance on Te Joyce Theater stage was a reflection of her experimental past, the influential lessons of which have long been absorbed into the greater dance world. [more]