The Quarry Dance Vision

Conversations with the producer and the choreographer

 
Lisa Hahn, producer 

I was two or three when I started swimming in the quarry at Halibut Point. The Websters owned it then. We were all great friends. We lived down the street next to them, so we packed up every day and went with them to their quarry. When I was ten we bought the farm that became the Windhover Center for the Performing Arts. My sister and I said, "Oh, now we can ride our horses over to where we swim!" It was a layering of childhood experiences.

Wading in the Halibut Point Quarry, 1950s
Courtesy of the Webster family

Halibut Point was the place where Quarry Dance was born. It was an extension of our home. For my mother it was falling in love with being on Cape Ann, and her mission was to bring dance into nature, as a performance place.

Ina Hahn at Halibut Point, 2011
Lisa Hahn photo

Part of my mission through the arts, with live music and dance, is to bring the community into touch with these amazing treasures. If they fall in love with the landscape, as my Mom and I have, they can't help but want to spend part of their life doing something to preserve or protect it.

Ina introducing Quarry Dance I, 2011
Lisa Hahn photo

For the Quarry Dance stage, the proscenium has been the contour of the cliffs. That's a novel idea, a very inspired idea. Windhover's mission is to bring dance into the community of Cape Ann.

The opening of Quarry Dance VIII, 2019

The magnitude of what happens in a Quarry Dance can transform people. It's larger than themselves. It's out of an ego world. The dance that happened yesterday with the birds showing off their own choreographic aspects, that layering of the art of Dušan's work and the birds, elevated your whole consciousness, your whole being.

Quarry Dance III

Dušan Týnek, choreographer

Ina was one of the first people who really recognized what I did, that it was worth supporting. She trusted me right from the beginning, by inviting the whole company here, in its second year. I mean we were babies. We didn't know what we were doing. She already saw something she thought was worth bringing up here and sharing it with her audience. Becoming part of her legacy. It's a very deep covenant.

Quarry Dance IV

This is a unique experience for us. We don't do many site-specific works throughout the year. This is the only place. A flooded quarry? Who does that? I've never heard of anybody. It's a privilege, and it's a challenge. It's always exciting to do.

Quarry Dance V

There has to be something that satisfies the soul. Otherwise the audience wouldn't come.

Quarry Dance V

I tell my dancers, were going to do a Quarry Dance. Get ready, you're going to get beat up. Start doing some push-ups. We rehearse all the time. But it's very different when you come to a quarry.

Quarry Danced VII

Dance is ephemeral, it doesn't exist beyond that moment when you are experiencing it. Other art forms--painting, pottery, sculpture, and such--the final product becomes a material, solid thing you can put your hands on. It can be there for eternity. But performance--it's a reduction of the actual experience.

Quarry Dance VIII

When you see it, something that was in your head, maybe you dreamt or you read about it. Then you had to pull all these people together, and they all listen to you and they make it happen, and then you see it on stage. Nothing compares to that.

Dušan Týnek and Lisa Hahn