HOFESH SHECHTER COMPANY: THEATRE OF DREAMS
Where do you start? Where does he start?
There was a post show discussion with the company after last night’s performance but I scuttled out fast, I was letting no amount of discussion and audience questioning cloud my experience. And had I stayed there would have been only one question on my lips – HOW?!
This choreographer has a long and successful association with Brighton Festival, bringing to the Dome stage some quite remarkable work, startling and innovative use of space, light and the human form. His work is not prescriptive but inviting, inviting you to become a part of the storytelling, and he is a storyteller.
Theatre of Dreams begs you to interpret for yourself, there are moments of terror, of anger and of pure fear. Explosive sounds and physicality, a relentless score/soundscape, an aural atmosphere that pulses and throbs and carries you along with what you are seeing.
It opens with a single dancer slowly making his way from the auditorium onto the stage, surveying the space and finally finding a small opening at the foot of the heavy curtains and sliding in. Make of it what you will but no doubt the “psychiatrists” in the audience will be thinking Freud.
Shechter always introduces elements that one might not expect and this time it is those curtains. His company of dancers and musicians this time added to by huge, fluid slabs of shifting fabric. As if the ensemble do not have enough to do remembering and delivering 90 minutes of complex and demanding choreography, they also have to deal with metres and metres of hanging cloth.
And with that cloth he changes the space, vast expanses suddenly become confined shafts of space and light, rapidly opening and closing to reveal one figure, then a group, then the entire company… and it is magical, in a blink of the eye one becomes nine becomes thirteen.
There are recognisable patterns and shapes that are clearly his trademark dance motifs, elements of the folk dance that are part of his heritage. But this time there is a softer and more elegant thread to the work, some gentle and romantic passages, a beautiful song, a lyric that expresses a sadness that whilst one part of a couple feel that they are “We” the other thinks that they are “Two”. This is moving stuff, thought provoking, taking dance to a new level, way beyond the purely physical, the shocking, the romantic, this is real theatre.
And is this the theatre of your dreams, some of it is the theatre of nightmare, unnervingly powerful and frequently recognisable. Who hasn’t woken from a dream in which you have found yourself standing naked in a crowd?
Shechter creates his own score, a compelling and driven whole that booms then drops to near silence with amazing impact, and in moments the gentle strains of an elegant dinner dance maybe. The recorded elements of the score are supplemented by a live band of red clad musicians, in parts adding to the ghostly music and then shifting to Latin rhythms, joyous moments in the whole experience. And this is not just a show, this is an experience!
When is comes to the staging Shechter clearly has a vision, those curtains are very much a part of the dance, but his collaborator Niall Black makes the whole work so seamlessly, not a great choice of word when describing metre upon metre of fabric. The lighting is stunning, Tom Visser does what I always admire, using less to achieve more, simply not afraid of the dark nor of injecting a flash of humour, who else noticed that moment of yellow when two dancers pause and urinate on the drapery? And Osnat Kelner’s costumes bridge the gap between fantasy and reality with graceful ease, urban and then exotic.
This was day one of Brighton Festival 2025, with one more chance to catch it on day two. It may well be the highlight of the whole season so fight for a ticket or really miss out on something very special. It is a privilege to have him and his company here and a relationship with the festival that we have to hope will be continued.
Andrew Kay
3 May
Brighton Dome Concert Hall
Rating:
