Review: HOFESH SHECHTER COMPANY: THEATRE OF DREAMS, Sadler's Wells

Hofesh Shechter — the Israeli choreographer who loves to make dance and music “because I believe those things make the world a better place” — is a dreamer, but he’s not the only one. With a raft of co-producer credits reaching from London to Shanghai, Theatre of Dreams is a heartpounding continuation of his bombastic style.

This is my second time around for this work and, having seen it last year in the same venue, I found myself drawn back to see if it would have the same effect again and to take a deeper look into this layered effort. Shechter doesn’t do obvious shows and his fans have come to expect the unexpected or at least await some concoction made up of a tuneful cacophony, strong dance moves and a journey or theme that pulls us in whether we like it or not.

Curtains are a core element of this work, used not only to section off the stage from the audience but, when opened partially, frame physical vignettes of stunning eloquence. It’s an obvious and clumsy metaphor, to be sure, delineating one world from another though, whether it is the asleep and the awake or Hifesh and his critics is never entirely clear. Even so, the use of floor-to- ceiling drapes is a constant motif throughout this 90-minute; even when drawn all the way back, there’s always a tickling notion that Shechter will snap them back across the stage when we least expect it.

Despite its title, there is no connection to the Manchester stadium other than the occasional sheer volume of the piece. Shechter erects a wall of sound that erupts and roils throughout. Bang-bang-bang industrial techno is interleaved with beats as he creates a Berghain-like atmosphere. There are quieter interludes but that is frankly Shechter’s idea of variety, a lull to give our ears a break before the next onslaught takes off in a new direction. When he’s done punishing the venue’s PA, out come a three-piece band dressed in red suits. Their suave jazzy sounds could be mistaken for dinner party muzak if it wasn’t accompanied by some superbly orgiastic choreography that piles on the energy higher and higher.

The concept suggested by the name is generally nodded at, an excuse for Shechter to do as he pleases in the name of nocturnal fantasy. He does occasionally nod to the world of nightmare: at one point, a man walks out alone to the front of the stage, realises he is nude and scuttles away as fast as he can; later, the lighting drenches the crew with deep shades of red producing an environment redolent of a gruesome B-movie bloodbath just through the use of colour alone.

Theatre of Dreams isn’t my favourite thing from Shechter but, frankly, it doesn’t need to be in order to be more thrilling than much of what is out there right now in London theatres. Bores will forever disdain this choreographer with hackneyed claims that he has always been more about style than substance. Others will point to how he doesn’t turn up the visual and aural spectacle all the way to eleven but, rather, starts somewhere beyond eleven and works his way down.

Perhaps he sees himself and his works as something of a middle finger to the more established companies he competes with. Given how much it has developed since Shechter set foot in London, it may be more accurate to see him as the grit in the oyster that has developed the capital’s dance scene into something of a pearl envied around the world.

Theatre of Dreams continues at Sadler's Wells until 18 October.