Overview
Hofesh Shechter, hailed by TimeOut London as the city's "most vital choreographer", is bringing his latest apocalyptic piece to the Auckland Arts Festival this March. Grand Finale is Hofesh's vision of a society on the edge of chaos and collapse – mixing 'violent comedy' and furious, 'anarchic energy' to create a multidimensional dance, music and theatre show.
Grand Finale features an ensemble of dancers and live music interacting with an increasingly claustrophobic space filled with various encroaching monoliths. The right stage design is incredibly important to Hofesh's vision as a choreographer. "My work is highly cinematic, moving and flowing its focus between tribal moments that fill the stage, and intimate private scenes; editing between the individual's emotion and character in counterpoint to the group. How small the individual is. How influential the individual can be. The tension of our social existence lies in the stretch between existing social orders and the individual's craving for freedom."
Music is also paramount to Hofesh's work, with the choreographer also composing the songs performed on stage. Of his work, Hofesh says "We believe that dance has the ability to prod, poke and tap into our deepest emotions; a part of ourselves that we rarely access in modern life. We dance to know what it feels like not just to live, but to be alive."