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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Hofesh Shechter Company: Theatre of Dreams

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

Oct 17–19, 2024
Via Pastrengo, 88, 10024 Moncalieri TO, Italy

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. —Apollinaire Scherr

Theatre of Dreams tours in the U.K., France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Austria, through May 2025