The standard of contemporary dance has been blown out of the park. The Hofesh Shecter Company performs a remarkable show in two parts at this year’s Melbourne Festival.
Uprising begins the journey with a powerful mix of rhythm and technique interpretations. The combination of classic technique with street styles here is seamless. The bold musical composition (by Shechter) deftly matches the high quality of the dancers in the work. It is a pounding and evocative piece, made more heart-wrenching with the knowledge that the source of this show was based on the Paris riots (in 2005, the deaths of two youths near Paris after they had fled a police identity check set off weeks of rioting throughout the country). The story is wholeheartedly an emotional trip where you are not just part of the audience watching from a distance – you are part of it – on the journey. The movements are fractal, exploding open and then turning in on themselves – each transition as fluid as mercury.
The sense of humour present in the first dance is carried through and strengthened in the second work In Your Rooms. An intelligent interpretation of the universe we live in, are bound to, and fight to free ourselves from. The dance constantly engages you as the struggle from formal synchronicity breaks out.
The Hofesh Shecter Company evolved in 2008 to tour internationally and extend on the well recognised talent and career of Hofesh Shechter who works as composer and choreographer for the company. Shechter studied drum and percussion in Tel Aviv, and later in Paris at the Agostiny College of Rhythm. As a dancer he studied at Jerusalem Academy of Dance and Music where upon graduation he was quickly snapped up by the Batsheva Dance Company. Shecter arrived in London in 2002 working with the Jasmin Vardimon Dance Company.
Fragments, his first choreographed piece, won first place in the 3rd Serge Diaghilev choreography competition. Again Shechter’s piece Cult was awarded the Audience Choice Award in 2004. Uprising was first commissioned by the Robin Howard Foundation forming the first of a three part bill contributing to Shecter’s first big evening performance. In Your Rooms was commissioned in 2007 by the collaboration of The Place, Southbank Centre and Sadler’s Wells, in London, and the work continues to be recognised winning the Critics Circle Award for Best Choreography (modern) in 2008. Other works Hofesh Shecter has developed include MotortownM by Simon Stephens (2006), The Arsonist (2007), National Theatre’s Saint Joan (2007) as choreographer, Maxxies Dance and who could forget the great second season open of Skins (a popular UK TV teenage drama series).
Uprising: Choreography by Hofesh Shechter; Music by Hofesh Schechter & Vex’d and Lighting Design by Lee Curran.
In Your Rooms: Choreography Hofesh Shechter; Music by Hofesh Shechter and String Arrangements by Nell Catchpole. The soundtrack features a sample from Takk … by Sigur Rós used with kind permission. Lighting Design by Lee Curran and Costume Design by Elizabeth Barker.
Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse until 12th October, 8pm
Melbourne International Arts Festival
