Rupert Christiansen

Don’t write off Hofesh Shechter – his new work is uniquely haunting

Plus: people of darker skin colour face little prejudice in ballet any longer – all thanks to one man

Hofesh Shechter's From England with Love at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Image: Todd MacDonald  
issue 04 May 2024

In 2010, when his thrillingly edgy and angry Political Mother delivered modern dance a winding punch right where it hurt, I had high hopes for Hofesh Shechter. Here was an outsider with the courage to make his own rules and engage dance with real-world issues (he had served a traumatising period in the Israeli army) rather than blindly following the fashionable goddess Pina Bausch down the rabbit hole of postmodern irony.

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