Deborah Hay, born in Brooklyn in 1941, is regarded by critics and historians as one of the most influential representatives of postmodern dance.

She trained with Merce Cunningham and danced with the Cunningham Dance Company during the 1964 world tour. She was an original member of the Judson Dance Theater, making dances since the early 1960s, collaborating with different many artists and mainly choreographing for untrained performers. Since 2000 she has worked exclusively with experienced performers.

Hay has written 4 books: Moving Through the Universe in Bare Feet (1975), Lamb at the Altar (1994) about the creative process that led to her dance of the same name, My Body, the Buddhist (2000) reflecting on embodied knowledge, and Using the Sky, an elaboration of her process. In 2012 she was selected for the inaugural Doris Duke Artist Award. Hay received an Honorary Doctor of Dance from Helsinki Theatre Academy and in 2016 she became a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in France.

Matteo Fargion and the other artists of the production 7 Dialogues.

MATTEO FARGION
Matteo Fargion is a composer, performer and teacher. He has worked in dance and theatre for over 25 years, collaborating with leading choreographers and directors in the UK and abroad.  For the past 15 years he has worked closely with Siobhan Davies, writing music for and performing in some of her most significant recent work, and Karl Jay Lewin. Together with Jonathan Burrows, he has made a series of 10 duets conceived, choreographed, composed, administrated and performed together. Both Sitting Duet won a 2004 New York Dance and Performance ‘Bessie’ Award, and Cheap Lecture was chosen for the prestigious 2009 Het Theater­festival in Belgium. He has also written a lot of music for theatre, especially in Germany, where he has collaborated several times with Elmar Goerden at several theatres and with Thomas Ostermeier at the Schaubühne Berlin. Matteo is also a long-time visiting member of faculty at PARTS, the school of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker in Brussels, where he has worked on a new approach to teaching composition to young choreographers, within a framework of music practice but built also on his wealth of experience as a performer.

Artists of the 7 Dialogues:
IVO DIMCHEV
Ivo Dimchev, born in 1976, is a choreographer and performer from Bulgaria. His work is an extreme and colorful mixture of performance art, dance, theatre, music, drawings and photography. He has received numerous international awards for dance and theatre and has presented his work all over Europe, South and North America. In 2014, Ivo opened up his new place MOZEI in Sofia Bulgaria, an independent space focused on contemporary art and music.

TIM ETCHELLS
Tim Etchells is an artist and a writer based in the UK whose work shifts between performance, visual art and fiction. He has worked in a wide variety of contexts, notably as the leader of the world-renowned Sheffield-based performance group Forced Entertainment and is currently Professor of Performance at Lancaster University. In recent years he has exhibited widely in the context of visual arts, participating in international biennales in Italy, Sweden, Japan a. o. One of his recent publications is While You Are With Us Here Tonight (2013).

BETH GILL
Beth Gill is a dancer and choreographer who has been making contemporary dance and performance in New York City since 2005. She is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and has been a guest artist and teacher at several colleges, universities and festivals. Her per­formances have toured nationally and internationally. Gill is the recipient of a 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award, a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2015–2016 Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and a 2012 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. She is an inaugural member of The Hatchery Project, a 2015–2016 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Extended Life Artist-in-Residence and a 2013–2015 New York City Center Choreography Fellow. In 2011 Gill was awarded two New York State Dance and Performance ‚Bessie’ Awards for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer and the Juried Award. In 2012, Dance Magazine named her one of the top 25 artists to watch.

ÉTIENNE GUILLOTEAU
The past couple of years, his choreographical work focused on the dramaturgical relation between dance, music and light. His main interest is to question the interaction of the various elements that compose theatre performance and representation. In November 2013 he premiered with his love duet Synopsis of a Battle at the Kaaitheater in the context of La Biennale of Charleroi Danses. He has created the solo Feu for Argentine dancer Cecilia Lisa Eliceche with live music played by electric guitar quartet Zwerm. In November 2015, upon request of the music festival DIALOGE in Salzburg, he has created a piece for eight dancers of the BODHI project from SEAD (Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance) in collaboration with the oenm (Öster­reichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik).

HETAIN PATEL
Hetain Patel is a visual artist. Since 2004, his video, photography, sculpture and live works have been shown internationally to critical and popular acclaim within institutions from Tate Britain, London to the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing. His works are in public and private collections in the U.K., China, India and U.S.A. In recent years, Patel has worked at the Royal Opera House, Tate Modern and Southbank Centre, London, and has shown work at the Venice Biennale. Patel is interested in connecting marginalised identities with the mainstream in an effort to destabilise notions of authenticity and promote personal freedom. Patel enjoys working across multiple languages, culturally and artistically. He is a New Wave Associate at Sadler’s Wells, London.

LUCY SUGGATE
Lucy Suggate is a dance artist based in the UK receiving recognition for her articulate and engaging solo performances. In 2013–14 Lucy became a Modul Dance Artist supported by Mercat de les flors and Graner in Barcelona, Dansehallerne/BoraBora in Denmark and the Arts council England Artist International development fund to produce a durational solo that went on to inform Lucy’s current work pilgrim. This work has been presented by international dance festivals. Recent collaborations include working with Rosemary Butcher on Secrets of the Open Sea,  Test Pieces for TANZ IM AU­GUST 2015, Wendy Houston’s Stupid Women, and on a two year EU project called Dancing Museums with Siobhan Davies Dance and the National Gallery London.

Raised in New York and initially trained in Florida with Nolan Dingman and Christa Long.

Forsythe danced with the Joffrey Ballet and later the Stuttgart Ballet, where he was appointed Resident Choreographer in 1976. In 1984, he began a 20-year tenure as director of the Ballet Frankfurt. After its closure, Forsythe established a new ensemble, The Forsythe Company, which he directed from 2005 to 2015. Forsythe’s most recent works were developed and performed exclusively by The Forsythe Company, while his earlier pieces are prominently featured in the repertoire of virtually every major ballet company in the world, including The Mariinsky Ballet, The New York City Ballet and The Paris Opera Ballet.

Further to his work as a choreographer, William Forsythe is a current Professor of Dance and Artistic Advisor for the Choreographic Institute at the University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance.

Ersan Mondtag wurde 1987 in Berlin geboren und arbeitet zwischen den Feldern Theater und Musik, Performance und Installation. Er inszenierte u.a. am Thalia Theater in Hamburg, am Schauspiel Frankfurt, am Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin und an den Münchner Kammerspielen.

An der Otto Falckenberg Schule in München begann Mondtag 2011 zu studieren. Nach zwei Jahren brach er das Studium ab und gründete 2012 in München das KAPITÆL ZWEI KOLEKTIF, konzipierte im Kollektiv Dauerperformances, experimentelle Partyformen sowie interdisziplinäre Theaterarbeiten, zuletzt „Party #4 – NSU“ im Mixed Munich Arts (MMA). Für die Schaustelle der Pinakothek der Moderne realisierte er mit Olga Bach die neuntägige Dauerperformance „KONKORDIA“.

In der Spielzeit 2013/14 war Ersan Mondtag Mitglied im REGIEstudio des Schauspiel Frankfurt und inszenierte dort „2. Sinfonie“ (2014 bei radikal jung – Das Festival für junge Regie), „Das Schloss“ und „Orpheus#“ (2015 bei radikal jung – Das Festival für junge Regie). 2015 entstand sein Stück „TYRANNIS“, mit dem Ersan Mondtag zum Berliner Theatertreffen 2016 eingeladen wurde. Weitere Gastspiele, u.a. erneut bei radikal jung – Das Festival für junge Regie, folgten.

Das Fachmagazin Theater heute kürte Mondtag zum Nachwuchsregisseur des Jahres 2016. Gleichermaßen wurde er in den Kategorien Nachwuchsbühnenbildner des Jahres und Kostümbildner des Jahres ausgezeichnet. Seine Inszenierung „Die Vernichtung“ (Text: Olga Bach), die am Konzert Theater Bern produziert wurde, brachte Mondtag die zweite Theatertreffen-Einladung in Folge ein. 2017 kürte ihn Theater heute zum Kostümbildner des Jahres, die Deutschen Bühne wählte ihn zum Bühnenbildner des Jahres.