Hofesh Shechter rarely does anything simply which is why he is regarded as one of the most exciting artists working today.
For the choreographer and musician it was a homecoming of sorts, returning to Brighton Festival four years after he was guest director. His latest work Grand Finale combined his usual abstract thoughts delivered in an incredibly dynamic, absorbing and comic way. Featuring ten dancers and six musicians, it was a show of complete contradictions. A smoke filled auditorium made way for sharp bright jolting bursts of light.
Dainty classical musicians battled with the heavy industrial mechanical soundtrack. This battle of black and white crossed over into the physical dancing. Structured yet flexible. Ordered yet chaotic.
Traditional yet cosmopolitan. Dark and destructive yet humorous and hopeful. This was a performance with no barriers – waltzing dead bodies, a post-apocalyptic set which seemingly floated across the stage and the orchestra, evoking the spirit of the Titanic, which continued to play even in the interval.
The beauty was that the performance meant as much or as little as you wanted it to. It was a superb absorbing piece of visual theatre. Bravo.
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