A simplistic interpretation of this dance theatre event is that Hofesh Shechter literally turned Sadler’s Wells into a Theatre of Dreams. His new work, which premiered in Paris, earlier this year, represents an episodic deep dive into the realms of the subconscious, predominantly through our hazy and transient recollection of dreams.
One dancer seemed to act as our guide, perhaps our dreamcatcher, hopping onto the stage with the houselights still on and crawling behind the drawn curtain to begin the work, and cropping up at various junctures thereafter. At one point he appeared to be cut in half by a curtain, more of which later.
The fragments of imagined scenarios that bring our deepest subliminal thoughts onto the stage include that old chestnut of a sudden realisation of being naked in public (a revelation deemed so key that it was repeated) to far less literal but nonetheless vital intrusions into our fears and anxieties. But there is much more than this, some of which seemed irrelevant to the theme. Theatre of Dreams is superbly performed by a group of thirteen dancers and three musicians, the latter distinctively dressed in blood-red suits and shirts, and it contains many diverse but equally arresting moments of performance. However, it needs an edit to trim away at least fifteen minutes of unnecessary fat. It would be so much the better for it.
The worst element, which seemed to grate against the overall theme, was a point late into the work when the house lights came on and the dancers breached the fourth wall by descending into the audience to encourage those in the front row and along the aisles to join in and dance to the band’s Latin sounds as if punters in a Salsa bar.
A dancer in a spangly outfit stood staring at this aisle-based critic, arm outstretched and beckoning me to join her, ignoring the fact that I was obviously writing notes! In contrast to my curmudgeonly refusal to meet her eye, several young people (I’m guessing that many, if not all, were dance students) came running eagerly from the back rows to dance in front of the stage. I imagine that some might be tempted to record on their CV that they danced with the Hofesh Shechter Company (it wouldn’t be a lie) and I think that they should all invoice the company for at least a fiver. However, I came to watch professional dancers dance and not an all-comers free-for-all. Word to the wise: get rid of this nonsense, most of the audience don’t want it, especially when it sits so incongruously with the rest of the show, interrupting that surreal feel of the subconscious.
And the rest of the show was, for the most part, absorbing in its scattergun array of images that were enriched by the sensory gilding of Tom Visser’s cinematic lighting and the eclectic soundtrack of Shechter’s own music. This was punctuated only by two arrangements of Molly Drake’s poignant and poetic 1950s song, I Remember, with lyrics that reminiscence a couple’s life together: the original by Drake herself, recorded at their home by her husband, Rodney, but not released for many years after her death; and a recent interpretation by Nell Catchpole, who has previous history with Shechter, co-composing his Untouchable for The Royal Ballet.
Shechter is not unique in composing for his own choreography (Mark Bruce is another to regularly do so) but it is a supreme mix of creative talents that always gives his work an extra dimension. The music is mostly loud and, for the first time in a long while, the Sadler’s Wells sound system seemed to handle it without uncomfortable vibration.
Visser’s lighting is combined with the innovative use of curtains, not simply the one that represents the fourth wall but layers of others that are drawn and opened to conceal and reveal the dancers, who in turn dress and undress both in full sight of the audience and behind the curtains. It’s a challenging concept of deconstruction that, linked with the dream thematic, makes us wonder what is happening unseen behind the curtains, since the dancers are often in mid-movement when revealed. Just as the late, great Trisha Brown teased us by making her audience wonder about dancers still performing in the wings in Glacial Decoy (1979), so Shechter takes that deconstructive theme, but keeps it on the stage and covers it with curtains.
Shechter now has the pick of international talent, and his dancers are remarkably diverse, in terms of physicality as well as ethnicity. They come from four continents with France being the most prolific source (four of thirteen are French). Only one, Zakarius Harry (a graduate from London Contemporary Dance School) is British. Together they are a tremendous ensemble, performing with pinpoint accuracy whenever in unison, and more-or-less continually in action for over 90 minutes. On reflection, perhaps they needed the respite of that audience interaction!
