Primal dance that pulses with vigour

Choreographer Hofesh Shechter’s new work raises the question: can dance be both political and popular?

WHEN ASKED to comment on his sizeable popularity, Hofesh Shechter pauses. The choreographer is on the other side of the world, talking from his hotel room in Japan, in the thick of an international tour with his new piece, Political Mother, which forms a major part of Galway Arts Festival this year.

An enthusiastic critic recently said Shechter would be doing for dance what the Young British Artists did for art in the 1990s. What does he think about this? He ends the pause, slightly uncomfortable. “He’s definitely somebody just saying something,” Shechter says, setting the record straight. “I don’t have a plan here.”

Shechter may not have made his five-year plan, as his meandering path into choreography illustrates, but his status as one of the UK's hottest choreographers is undeniable. Since he presented his works Uprisingand In Your Roomsa couple of years ago, his star has been on the rise internationally. After premiering Political Motherin Brighton, in May, he has brought it to Germany, South Korea, Japan and Australia, taking a quick detour to London before coming to Galway. It will then tour for the rest of the year.

“I always wanted to travel, actually,” says Shechter, who was born and grew up in Jerusalem. “I was curious about Europe, about the rest of the world. There is a feeling when you grow up in a place like Israel – it’s a very small place. Everybody knows everybody. And it feels a bit too cosy sometimes.”

Shechter didn’t start out as a dancer. As a boy he learned to play the piano, and did folk dancing, which is part of the school curriculum in Israel, although at first it wasn’t really for him. “I have to say, I didn’t immediately connect with dance at all,” he says. “My best friend at the time really wanted to go and try to dance in this youth folk-dance company. So we went to the auditions, and the first thing that attracted me about it was the social aspect. It was in a place far away from where I lived, and I met a lot of new people there. But there was also the physical challenge: I am shy, but I don’t want to be. I am quite closed in my nature, but I want to find a way to feel comfortable with my body and express myself. Something about the fear was attractive, actually. That I could solve or overcome it.”

As he got older (and acquired a French girlfriend) it seemed natural to move to Paris. He stayed there for a few years, studying percussion, before moving first back to Israel and next on to the UK a few years later. Then, as Shechter says, “it all happened very quickly”. After two years of living and working in London, “I decided, that’s it. I want to do my own work. I want to choreograph.” He gave himself a year, didn’t take on any other projects, no matter how interesting, and devoted himself to choreography. “And by the end of that year,” he says, “I was already quite busy, and it just felt quite natural to continue with choreography.”

Diffident and softly spoken, Shechter nevertheless packs an energy into his work that feels primal and pulses with vigour. His background in folk dance

and music feeds into his choreography. The primal beats; the long-limbed thrusting and thrashing of his dancers; and the rhythmic, sinuous, often plaintive music all combine to create a spectacle uniquely Shechter’s. It’s like an urban tribe drawn out of self-conscious politeness into something deeper and closer to life. The title of Political Mother brings these conflicting ideas together.

“I really liked it from the beginning and felt really connected to it,” Shechter says. “I knew that the work was going to be sort of a clash between realities that might feel unrelated, and the task of the work is to make sense out of this nonsense, make sense out of these different worlds that are living side by side.”

For Shechter, not the polished power games of the ruling classes but the social, immediate effects of politics take precedence. “The only aspect of politics that interests me is the human aspect, actually,” he says. “The way humans respond to politics or feel when they are exposed to politics or to people speaking or people leading them or to being led.”

His experience growing up in a society ravaged by extremes and under constant threat may have contributed to his disdain for the machinations of politicians. “In essence,” he says, “it’s the same politics, but it feels like things are way more meaningful because crazy things are happening. It just makes me feel that politics is even more pointless because it fails to solve the situation.”

Shechter pauses. “Actually, that’s an interesting thought. I don’t know if politics ever solved anything, anywhere. It’s just sort of like a world of definitions, and the world of definitions always creates conflict. So, I’m just trying to say, the place where I come from is way more extreme than a lot of other places, and it makes me see politics in a more ridiculous light. And it makes me not really believe in the power of it.”

But the power of Shechter’s work has won rapturous praise and audiences all over the world. Nevertheless, he remains sceptical about all this attention. “The shallow stamp of success,” as he puts it, “can be a pleasant feeling that goes away in two minutes; it’s not very real. My life didn’t really change. I’m not looking shinier, my teeth are not whiter.” He laughs softly.

The aspect of success that excites him is the rapport his work can establish with an audience. “Part of the power of the work is the 1,000 pair of eyes watching it and being part of that ceremony and of the energy. So I love the idea that people are enjoying the work and experiencing it and finding it catching and powerful and exciting. And it feels like something very positive. It can also feel a bit dangerous. And, you know, things like that can move fast.”

Political Mother

is at Black Box Theatre, Galway, from next Tuesday, July 20th, to Saturday, July 24th; galwayartsfestival.com

WANT MORE?The official website for Political Mother, politicalmother.co.uk, features a trailer. YouTube also has many videos, including several that show the works that propelled Hofesh Shechter to public acclaim, Uprisingand In Your Rooms.