Theatre of Dreams.
Choreography and music Hofesh
Shechter. Lighting design Tom Visser. Costume design Osnat Kelner. Associate
Artistic Director Bruno Guillore. Music Collaborator Yaron Engler. Set
Collaborator Niall Black. Images Tom Visser. Cast: Dancers Alex Haskins,
Robinson Cassarino, Tristan Carter, Frederic Despierre-,Keanah Simin, Juliette
Valerio, Chanel Vivent. Musicians Norman Jankowski, Bartłomiej Janiak ,James Keane.
Additional Music: I Remember. Written by M. Drake (Reservoir Media Management/Mushroom
Music). Hofesh Shechter Company. Festival Theatre. Adelaide Festival Centre.
Adelaide Festival. March 13-15 2026.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
We notice the man standing in the
second row. He climbs onto the stage and sneaks towards the black curtain.
Curiosity extends his arm towards the curtain that he slowly opens. There is a
flash of light on the figure within the gap. The body appears to jerk, sudden
and spontaneous and the curtain closes. The man, now more curious than ever,
once more draws the curtain aside. As swiftly as before more dancers appear
revealed in a beam of red light. The movements are spasmodic, sharply etched
and the man is lured into the dance. Choreographer Hofesh Shechter’s
imagination is ready to break free of the darkness and into a dreamscape of the
human psyche.
Theatre of Dreams opens our minds to a world beyond the
conscious, and yet instantly recognizable through Shechter’s electrifying
choreography. His dancers transcend convention and expectation. Their dance, like
our dreams, defies the expected and thrusts us into the world
of fear and wonder, driven by Dyonisian
supplication to the celebration of the theatre of the dance.
Shechter’s vision is
photographic, flashes of imagery through the aperture of the curtain, sometimes
narrow catching a glimpse of a dancer alone or with only a few or at other
moments widened to reveal the company, captured in the lens of our amazement. Each
dancer is the lead actor in their own creative expression of the moment or the
theme. And then as if by some unimpelled force they are swept into a community
of dance, instinctively forming a unified expression of Hechter’s choreography.
It is mesmerizing, carrying the audience along and into a hypnotic world of
astonishing physicality. There is no moment to escape the hold that Hechter’s
company has. We are at once transfixed and transformed as Tom Visser’s lighting
design dazzles us with flashes of red to capture the frenetic gesture or
nightmarish fear. At another moment a flash of stark white creates a momentary
freeze frame which morphs quickly into another company movement, impulsive and
dynamic.
A lone dancer becomes an Emcee,
inviting us to the
Theatre of Dreams. At the side of the stage three
musicians appear beneath another shaft of red light that bathes trombonist,
drummer and keyboard player in the cabaret world of dreams. A lone figure
watches the dance unfold until he too is drawn into the company, twisting and
turning into the community. The movements are supple, expressive and dynamic.
Like a dream we are possessed in the moment, captured by Shechter’s
idiosyncratic score.
Theatre of Dreams is a journey into the
uncontrolled regions of our subconscious. It can be real, a wave of panic or a
tender moment that lulls us into a state of calm security. The various
movements of Hechter’s choreography encourage the diversity of experience and
an invitation to share the euphoria. The dancers build the tempo as if at a disco
or a rave and invite the audience to join in and clap their hands. The
invitation needs little urging as the entire audience leaps to their feet and
begins to dance with the company. It is the dance of liberation. Finally the
Theatre
of Dreams like all dreams comes to an end in front of elegantly hung
scalloped curtains, reminiscent of the curtains that hung in front of the old
movie houses.
Like a dream, the unexpected, the
mysterious, the fearful and the exciting all fade into the darkness or the
waking and Hechter and his phenomenal dancers lead us from the fantasy to the
reality of the light. There is a catharsis that only a total commitment to the
experience can create. This is the exhilarating magic and power of Theatre
of Dreams. It comes as no surprise that some I know bought tickets to
return for another night at Theatre of Dreams’ all too short and
unforgettable season.
Photos by Andrew Beveridge
