Cullberg Ballet – Figure a Sea

Cullberg Ballet has performed across the world since its inception in 1967 by the pioneering Swedish choreographer Birgit Cullberg. The company collaborates with a variety of national and international choreographers and performing artists to present contemporary dance in a distinctly Swedish style.

Radical choreographer Deborah Hay presents a new dance work vibrating with technical precision and minimalist expression, with music by Laurie Anderson. One of the world’s most influential choreographers, Hay has repeatedly expanded our understanding of dance. Together with Sweden’s Cullberg Ballet, she presents Figure a Sea. The hyper-attuned dancers develop movements to the electronic, meditative sounds of musician and composer Anderson, another pioneer in her field, based on a set of questioning instructions by Hay. In Figure a Sea, the dancer and the stage become a sea of endless possibilities. Hay proposes the same set of ?what if?’ questions for the company dancers, as if stacking multiple meditations at once. They do not look at the world when they are dancing. They participate in it. ‘Figure a Sea is a meditation on seeing. Seeing music, fleeting incidences and synchronicities, unbelievable unexpectedness and, most surprising – seeing the unnamable. It is a space for seeing oneself seeing,’ says Hay.

Queen Elizabeth Hall