Skip to Content

The Arts Intel Report

Hofesh Shechter Company: Theatre of Dreams

A performance of the Hofesh Shechter Company’s Theatre of Dreams.

Feb 19 – May 22, 2025

If the advance press is to be trusted, Hofesh Shechter’s latest full-evening work is about the realm of dreams—a world apart. But it doesn’t really matter what a Shechter dance is about. Like certain political campaigns, the dances work on vibes. You feel them, and what you usually feel is assaulted—by the manic percussion-heavy rock banging away onstage and by the high voltage footlights-cum-searchlights beaming into your eyes—and ensorcelled. The work is at once theatrical and self-enclosed, like a rave or a cult. Shechter tends to use the full ensemble of unkempt youth at once. The dancers are not individuals and yet no one is telling them what to do. As in dreams, the issues of will and consent nag at us. A Hofesh dance is an experience, and an amorphous risk. Theatre of Dreams is touring Europe through May 22, with stops in Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, and four cities in France. —Apollinaire Scherr