Israeli-born Hofesh Shechter is dance's most explosive choreographer, his fiery work the product of his warring homeland and the pain of being left by his mother as a child.
Luke Jennings / The Observer skriver
Israeli-born Hofesh Shechter is dance’s most explosive choreographer, his fiery work the product of his warring homeland and the pain of being left by his mother as a child.
From the outside, the contemporary dance world can look uninviting. A members-only club dedicated to über-seriousness and having no fun. And, too often, as you take your place for the latest slice of po-faced conceptualism, that’s what it looks like from the inside too. So when, shortly after the millennium, a whip-smart young Israeli choreographer started kicking down the walls enclosing the art form, there were cheers from insiders and outsiders alike.
His name was Hofesh Shechter, and he had trained as a dancer in Jerusalem and as a percussionist in Tel Aviv and Paris. He had also done his statutory two years of national service, and when he arrived in Britain in 2002, he was one of the few dance practitioners who could strip down and reassemble an Uzi machine-pistol blindfolded. He was angry, he was darkly handsome, and he had a lot to tell the world – not least that much contemporary dance was ”boring”. Some of his peers would find him arrogant; most stood back wide-eyed, watching his rocketing ascent.
I Judith Mackrell / The Guardian recension av Grand Final på Sadler’s Wells, London kan vi läsa
The choreographer squares up to our political anxieties – and his own demons – with grace and the defiant spirit of the band who played on the Titanic
As he once said, he has always been terrified of making choreography without “feeling the reasons for what I’m doing”. It’s an explanation, perhaps, for his desire to keep his demons close, as the touchstone of his artistic conscience; also, perhaps, for why he’s so wary of allowing himself to create a perfectly polished product.
On one level Shechter can be a consummate showman. He has a rare talent for channelling raw dance energy into patterns of shimmering, rhythmic intricacy; the knotted, gnarly grace of his signature style is purely his own. When his 2010 work Political Mother was staged in an expanded “choreographer’s cut” at the Brixton Academy in London, the event was more like a rock concert than a contemporary dance show, holding its audience rapt.
Egensinnig, oförutsägbar och totalhypad. Hofesh Shechter är en av dansvärldens stora favoriter. För två år sedan fyllde han Dansens Hus med pumpande dubstep i trilogin barbarians. Nu är han tillbaka med prisade Grand Finale för tio dansare och ett liveband.
Shechter är en koreograf som aldrig väjt för det mörka. Men kanske är Grand Finale ändå hans mest dystopiska föreställning någonsin. Vi möter en värld i fritt fall.
En klassisk orkester, som hämtad från Titanic, heroisk spelande Tjajkovskij alltmedan skeppet går under. Mixad med Shechters egna elektroniska ljuduniversum blir det ett vibrerande undergångsbeat.
13, 14, 15 NOV (STORA SCEN)
INTERVJU MED Hofesh Shechter
Video credit: Romaeuropa
REPETIONSTRAILER
Video Credit: ®Victor Frankowski 2017
