MOUSSE MAGAZINE, “Notes on Spitting: Part 1, The Texture of Time”, Dani Blanga Gubbay, March 24, 2025
SPIKE ART MAGAZINE – The Post-Cool, “Portraits: Alexandra Pirici, Maria Hassabi, Ivo Dimchev”, Florian Malzacher, Winter 2024
LIFO, “Stillness, the self and distortion in the golden world of Maria Hassabi”, Argyro Bozoni, December 14, 2024
MASH, “Art Basel 2024: A Canvas of Boundless Creativity and Innovation”, June 2024
FORBES, “Highlights From Art Basel’s Unlimited 2024”, Nel-Olivia Waga, June 11, 2024
E-TCETERA, “Maria Hassabi – On Stage (Kunstenfestivaldasarts). En slipsteen voor je aandacht”, Sébastien Hendrickx, May 27, 2024
L’OEIL D’OLIVIER, “Maria Hassabi «On Stage», secousse immobile”, Samuel Gleyze-Esteban, May 21, 2024
THEATERKRANT, “Maria Hassabi intrigeert met pure slow art”, Tuur Devens, May 20, 2024
PZAZZ, “On Stage: Maria Hassabi. Intieme afstand”, Pieter T’ Jonck, May 19, 2024
FRIEZE, Issue 240, January/February 2024. Maria Hassabi’s Distorted Mirror. Review by Harry Burke. November 17, 2023
DER STANDARD, “Maria Hassabis Haltung als Tänzerin knapp vor der Eruption”, Helmut Ploebst, November 25, 2023
ARTASIAPACIFIC, “Roundtable Review: Maria Hassabi’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror”, December 11, 2023
PW-MAGAZINE, “The Value of Physical Presentness: HERE”, Lisa Moravec, June 6, 2021
FRIEZE, Issue 195 May 2018. Stillness is the Move. Interview by Harry Thorne. April 16, 2018
SPIKE ART QUARTERLY #53 Against Time, Portrait by Harry Burke Autumn 2017
It is never Staged: Ana Janevski on Maria Hassabi
SIX by EIGHT Press, Issue. 16 The Artist is Public, and You Might Hurt Her By Alexandra Reale
THE BOSTON GLOBE, “Theatrics, dance mesh in Hassabi’s ‘STAGED’”, Thea Singer, March 19, 2017
ROUTINE MAGAZINE, “Adjusting to Near Stillness”, Lydia Mokdessi, October 9, 2016
MOUSSE MAGAZINE, “Continuing from Liveness”, Hendrik Folkerts, September 2016
MOUSSE MAGAZINE, “Shifting Positionalities”, Tim Griffin, September 2016
PARKETT, “Death Becomes Her: Maria Hassabi at the Museum”, Claire Bishop, June 2016
SVA ART WRITING, “The Kinetics of Stillness: Maria Hassabi at MoMA”, Jessica Holmes, March 25, 2016
BLOUIN ARTINFO, “Review: Maria Hassabi at MoMA”, Juliet Helmke, March 18, 2016
BLOUIN ARTINFO, “Body Art: Maria Hassabi’s MoMA Dancers Discuss ‘Plastic'”, Noelle Bodick, March 15, 2016
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “‘Plastic,’ at MoMA, Is on the Floor and the Stairs”, Siobhan Burke, March 9, 2016
ARTFORUM, “Present Tense”, Claudia La Rocco, February 29, 2016
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “Review: Maria Hassabi’s ‘Plastic’ Sends Dancers Crawling Through MoMA”, Siobhan Burke, February 23, 2016
SPIKE, “Views: Plastic”, February 2016
“Maria Hassabi: Glances”, Thomas J. Lax, February 2016
“Living Contradiction”, Tim Griffin, February 2016
INTERVIEW, “Maria Hassabi”, Christopher Bollen, February 26, 2016
TDR, “The Choreography of Anticipation in Maria Hassabi’s ‘PREMIERE'”, Victoria Gray, September 2015
DAILY BRUIN, “Art Exhibit Review: ‘Plastic'”, Yazmine Mihojevich, March 1, 2015
PERFORMANCE RESEARCH Volume 19 Issue 3, “Slow Work: Dance’s temporal effort in the visual sphere”, Biba Bell, 2014
BOMB Magazine, “Scott Lyall and Maria Hassabi”, Lauren Grace Bakst, February 11, 2014
THE DANCE ENTHUSIAST, “Impressions of: Maria Hassabi’s ‘Premiere’ at The Kitchen in conjunction with Performa 13”, Erin Bomboy, November 18, 2013
At over 75-minutes long, PREMIERE insists you confront your 21st century hyper-stimulation.
THE NEW YORKER, “A Dance of a Million Premières”, Andrew Boynton, November 15, 2013
PREMIERE… was an absorbing study in time distortion, an invitation—or a challenge—to experience dance on a microscopic level… it was a dance made of a million premières, and every time someone maneuvered from crouching to standing, or changed direction, it was presented with the solemnity and the elegance of a major event.
INTERVIEW MAGAZINE, “Maria Hassabi’s Premiere League”, Emily McDermott, November 2013
PERFORMA MAGAZINE, “PREMIERE: Maria Hassabi’s new instance on dance”, Cristiane Bouger, November 12, 2013
The stunning visual composition captured on the first glimpse at PREMIERE is delivered in its fullness to the viewer’s contemplation along the entirety of the piece… Hassabi’s choreography is extreme. It makes the viewer look at those interstices that would not be perceived otherwise.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “One Step Forward, One Step Back: Maria Hassabi’s ‘Premiere,’ Part of Performa 13”, Siobhan Burke, November 11, 2013
PREMIERE is quite literally about turning in from the world, about coming to face an audience, an extended first encounter. Luminous, strenuous, severe—as riveting to watch as it is taxing.
ARTS JOURNAL, “Moving Pictures”, Deborah Jowitt, November 11, 2013
Hassabi is a master of slowness and stillness – her pieces are like art installations brought to life by dancers.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES, “Maria Hassabi, The Kitchen, New York – review”, Apollinaire Scherr, November 10, 2013
Maria Hassabi’s slow, sculptural, exacting work appears in white boxes as often as black: it owes as much to art as it does to dance and theatre. Indeed, [PREMIERE] defines itself in that gap, deriving power and poignancy from the tension between the aesthetic and the theatrical – the art object and the human subject.
THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK, “Maria Hassabi: PREMIERE”, Mark Rifkin, November 7, 2013
PREMIERE is another fabulously creative, involving, and challenging piece by Hassabi in her continuing exploration of movement, expectation, personal connection, the nature of performance itself, and the endless intricacies of the human mind and body.
INFINITE BODY, “Maria Hassabi Premieres ‘PREMIERE’ at The Kitchen”, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, November 7, 2013
The work—an endurance trial for performers and audience alike—is a knockout.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “Movement Extremes”, Gia Kourlas, November 1, 2013
For both choreographers, the key is finding strength from within. It’s extreme.
TIME OUT NEW YORK, “Maria Hassabi Unveils ‘PREMIERE’ at The Kitchen”, Gia Kourlas, October 24, 2013
ART PAPERS, “18 down, 17 up: a pause with Maria Hassabi”, Chris Fitzpatrick, September 2013
ARTFORUM, “Now You See It: Claire Bishop on the Lithuania/Cyprus Pavilion”, Claire Bishop, September 2013
This was easily the most striking and beautiful new work I saw in Venice.
ARTFORUM, “Bodies That Matter”, Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, June 8, 2013
…in the choreographer Maria Hassabi’s ‘living sculptures,’ whose bodies are draped and stretched across the benches of a sports stadium, brilliantly revealed in the terrific joint pavilion for Cyprus and Lithuania.
FINANCIAL TIMES, “Street movement”, Apollinaire Scherr, August 3, 2012
…the dancers messed with our desire to know what this art was about, if not what it was worth.
ARTFORUM, Nikki Columbus, November 28, 2011
SHOW was a tense, exhausting combination of immersive dance and installation.
CULTUREBOT, “Week(s) in Review”, Andy Horwitz, November 5, 2011
While her choreography is pretty out there, she definitely pushes the body into interesting and unexpected directions. She asks compelling questions about the meaning of the observed body and about the dynamic and expectations between audience and performer.
THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK, “Maria Hassabi: SHOW” Mark Rifkin, November 2011
SHOW is a brilliant, often erotically charged evening-length piece performed by two dynamic, brave dancers unafraid to take risks, involving the audience in unique and, at times, demanding ways.
ARTFORUM, “Time Traveler”, Claudia La Rocco, September 30, 2010
ULTRA, “Maria Hassabi – SoloShow: Society of the Spectacle”, Tim DuRoche, September 15th, 2010
The discipline, constraint and austerity and the ultimate resulting poetry of the work was staggering-with an utter minimum of movement and fiercely conceptual drive, Hassabi managed to transcend dance and approach an art-making that was far more steeped in durational performance/installation.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “Time to Put Choreography Back on Its Feet”, Gia Kourlas, September 2, 2010
Time-Based Art Festival, “TBA Outlook/Look Out: Maria Hassabi”, Artistic Director Cathy Edwards, August 5, 2010
Hers is a dance that lives between object and movement, a dance that conjures a frame and dares you to resist.
IDANCA.NET, “Solo and SoloShow: a Diptych by Maria Hassabi”, Cristiane Bouger, June 24, 2010
No matter the art form or the intersection of arts that is on focus, when an artist makes very clear and specific decisions something more extraordinary about the content of the work is revealed.
THE BROOKLYN RAIL, “Lost in Translation: Maria Hassabi and Robert Steijn”, Erika Eichelberger, May 2010
Her cheeks flush, her nose reddens, her eyes almost spill over, her eyebrows quake. She is absolutely experiencing her experiment. It is beautiful.
ARTINFO, “Can Dance be Performance Art?”, Blythe Sheldon, April 21, 2010
Hassabi and Steijn were adrift in their own concentration and in each other’s gazes, with the viewers equally entranced.
FINANCIAL TIMES, “Robert and Maria, Danspace Project, New York”, Apollinaire Scherr, April 20 2010
Robert and Maria covers about 6 sq ft of ground – and lifetimes of feeling. … If Eadweard Muybridge had photographed not a horse’s gallop but feelings growing, shrinking and wavering across body, face and the space between two people, it might have looked like this.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “He Gazed, She Gazed, and They Danced”, Claudia La Rocco, April 19, 2010
“Robert and Maria” is a dance by degrees, in which the inching closer of angled torsos or the slow joining of hands becomes an act of rich drama… It’s rare to get such an unadorned window into the world of two strangers.
TIME OUT NEW YORK, “Robert and Maria: Two sides of a dance”, Gia Kourlas, Apr 14-22, 2010
OUTWITHMARY.COM, “…Staggering Genius”, Mary Barone, November 19, 2009
Staggering genius…like the British art duo Gilbert & George…Hassabi eliminated the distinction between artist and art.
BEE STING BROSE, “Maria Hassabi, SoloShow”, Julia Oldham, November 16, 2009
…a great collision of grace, tension, grotesqueness, seduction and pain…
INFINITEBODY, “Hassabi’s collage”, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, November 13, 2009
The work lasts about an hour of clock time–quite a testament to Hassabi’s vigor and determination–but you might find yourself completely losing track of time.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “Playing Connect the Dots, From Aphrodite to Lil’ Kim”, Gia Kourlas, November 13, 2009
THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK, “Maria Hassabi: SoloShow”, November 12, 2009
Hassabi makes her way around the platform with awe-inspiring skill and dexterity, her muscles and veins bulging as her body shakes, often held slightly above the platform by hands that leave disappearing sweat prints on the dark surface.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “Shedding a Carpet Skin, With Plenty of Perspiration”, Gia Kourlas, October 2, 2009
Ms. Hassabi’s body is astounding…
THE VILLAGE VOICE, “Maria Hassabi Cuts a Rug”, Deborah Jowitt, October 2, 2009
Gazing at this exquisitely designed living sculpture, you also feel your own body straining with Hassabi, and in the slow friction between these two views, mysterious emotions ignite.
THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK, “Maria Hassabi: Solo”, September 29, 2009
SOLO…[is] really a very different kind of pas de deux … it’s a thrill watching what Hassabi the dancer is capable of.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “The Week Ahead”, Roslyn Sulcas, September 25, 2009
In her GLORIA (2007) Ms. Hassabi, born in Cyprus, created a powerfully theatrical environment … perhaps she will transport us again.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “Leaps, Bounds, Birthdays, Despite Belt Tightening”, Claudia La Rocco, September 9, 2009
…smart and subversive Maria Hassabi…
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “Sometimes It’s Darkness, Sometimes It’s Babble”, Claudia La Rocco, October 10, 2008
Maria Hassabi’s “Come in my house I want to hurt you!” continued her exploration of the female body as moving sculpture, objectified yet powerful.
TIME OUT NEW YORK, “The best of 2007”, Gia Kourlas, December 27, 2007 – January 2, 2008
The best of 2007…duet for two beauties who never touch…
DanceMagazine.com, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, December 2007
Maria Hassabi and Hristoula Harakas-two of the most exciting contemporary dance artists in New York-exist alone together in Gloria, Hassabi’s latest work…Both dancers and viewers endure harsh exposure…
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “Spare Spaces, Bare Bulbs, Wonderful Works”, Roslyn Sulcas, December 23, 2007
A piece of pure theater in which the cumulative effect of their disaffected, sculptural poses was as compelling as it was mysterious.
THE VILLAGE VOICE, “Split Screen Live: Maria Hassabi’s Gloria”, Deborah Jowitt, November 25th, 2007
A double image of two intrepid dancers. The performers are arresting to watch…
FlavorPill.com, “Maria Hassabi: Gloria”, Druschel Guida, November 2007
Set to the sounds of cars honking and cell phones ringing, Gloria is a slow, haunting walk through a familiar city.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “Dance in Review: Gloria”, Roslyn Sulcas, November 10, 2007
The boundaries between dance, artwork, installation and performance are subtly blurred… every sculptural position suggests unverifiable meaning.
TIME OUT NEW YORK, “Gloria days”, Gia Kourlas, November 8 – 14, 2007
THE NEW YORK TIMES, Claudia La Rocco, November 2, 2007
…these captivating performers you want to watch at any given moment.
GAY CITY NEWS, “Grim Visage”, Lori Oritz, April 2006
“The dancers movement is eye-popping, pedestrian, and traffic stopping.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES, “In a Confluence of Style and Emotion, Finding the Art of Alienation”, John Rockwell, April 15, 2006
THE NEW YORK TIMES, Claudia La Rocco, April 7, 2006
