Dancing (2024) is a new work initiated by the iconic American choreographer Deborah Hay, who has been a leading dancer and choreographer internationally for many decades. Hay has invited three experienced Norwegian dancers – Ingrid Haakstad, Geir Hytten, and Gry Kipperberg – into Deborah Hay’s Trio Project, a series of works exploring “the practical magic of the trio.” Drawing from an earlier solo score, the trio Dancing was developed in Austin, Texas, in the spring of 2024. The choreographic progression of the performance is formed through the interaction between Hay’s instructions, the score, the dancers’ long-term relationship with the work, and decisions made in the moment.

Dancing is a mutual development relationship through a process of interpretation, perception, and choices that lead to a choreography that is never quite the same from performance to performance, but can be seen as “samples” in an ongoing process. By surrendering to the reality and complexity of being unable to know what will happen from one moment to the next, a nerve and a childlike joy arise, and within this tension, the performance unfolds—in a continuity of discontinuity.
“My dances no longer have questions. The dramaturgy arises from each artist’s unique perspective on how their perception of the universe serves their practice of the dance.” —Deborah Hay

The score for Dancing (2024) is an adaptation of the solo I’ll Crane for You (2008), choreographed for the Solo Performance Commissioning Project. With Dancing, those involved are helping to move dance history and heritage into the future – not as something fixed, but as a mutable form.

Deborah Hay (born 1941) is an influential American choreographer, dancer, dance theorist, and author, who has spent her life working in the experimental, postmodern dance field. She is one of the original founders of the avant-garde Judson Dance Theater in New York in 1962.

Read more about the project here

Deborah Hay trio

Ingrid Haakstad is educated from Spin Off and Khio (Oslo). She works co-creatively and performs in productions and art projects both nationally and internationally and received the Norwegian Government Artists’ Grant in the period 2015-17. Since 2018 she has been employed in the Actors and Dancers Alliance. Ingrid works closely and regularly with Fieldworks. The company is characterized by a nuanced, complex, and often multimedia expression, actively engaging with space, place, and context as key aspects of their work. Ingrid has participated in seven productions with Fieldworks and is still touring with several of the performances. Other important collaborations include Eivind Seljeseth, Janne-Camilla Lyster, Hege Haagenrud, Landing, Stian Danielsen, Irene Theisen, and Orfee Schuijt.

Gry Kipperberg is educated at Khio (Oslo) and the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York and is a Certified Practitioner of Body-Mind Centering®.
She has been active as a creative and performing dancer for a number of choreographers and companies in the project-based performing arts field in Norway since 1990. In 1999, she established the company Wee with choreographer Francesco Scavetta, and together they have produced 22 full-length performances, including the solo performances “Strangely Enough” (2010) and “Under The Nothing Night” (2020), and have had extensive international activity. Gry was awarded the Rolf Gamleng Prize in 2012, and a 10-year working grant for established artists in 2024. She has been employed in the Actors and Dancers Alliance since December 2012.

Geir Hytten holds a master’s degree in dance from Laban and in Human Geography from the University of Oslo (UiO). In London, he collaborated with Punchdrunk in various projects over ten years. Other companies include Vincent Dance Theatre, The Cholmondeleys and The Featherstonehaughs, Frantic Assembly, Rosie Kay, Daniel Kramer/Frauke Requardt, Coisceim, Emma Martin, Junk Ensemble, Liz Roche, and Complicite. In Norway, he has danced for Jo Strømgren Kompani, Impure Company, Brageteatret, Ulf Nilseng, Kjersti Engebretsen, Theater F, Elle Sofe, Simone Grøtte, Katrine Kirsebom, Laterna, De Naive/Roza Moshtaghi, Gry Ulfeng, and Karstein Solli/Øystein Elle. He has choreographed and performed “Vi Synger” (2016), “YOUR FAN” (2018), “hello brother” (2019-20), “grief will be our companion” (2021), “RED FLAG” (2024), and “WHITEOUT” (2025). He has been employed in the Actors and Dancers Alliance since 2019 and is a recipient of the Norwegian Government Artists’ Grant for 2014-15 and 2022-24.