Sunday 18 December 2011
South East Choreographer Hofesh Shechter Lets The Music Do The Moving
Local choreographer Hofesh Shechter has joined forces with sculptor Antony Gormley to produce a new performance piece which for the first time will focus on his music rather than choreography.
The performance, named Survivor, was commissioned by the Barbican, and is described as an original score by Shechter set in a visual landscape by Gormley.
Together, the pair determine the rhythm and the narrative of the work.
Hofesh Shechter, whose previous works include Political Mother and Uprising, said:
"In Antony I have found a spirited partner with whom I can re-imagine the visual world in which my music might exist.
"With a frozen image of his own being, a body, Antony at times expresses more than I can with the many living bodies of my dancers.
"He's a choreographer of space and emotion and it's thrilling to open up the cavernous space of the Barbican and to compose a score to the rhythm of his imagination."
Hofesh Schechter is also Resident Company at another South East National portfolio organisation, Brighton Dome.
Survivor was funded with £95,000 from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Antony Gormley, the acclaimed artist and creator of The Angel of the North, added:
"We share an interest in bodies in space and Hofesh is a master of time, especially percussive time.
"It will be an adventure to work with the intelligent bodies of others within the emergent architecture of Hofesh's pulmonary music.
"The urgency of his work strikes me as being significant for us now. It comes from the divisions at the heart of the world and seems to speak of our predicament of being controlled but desiring extension.
"We are grappling with being survivors in a world awash with information and events about which we have no control and little direct contact."
Survivor brings a band of 30 musicians together to perform the work live.
The performances take place between January 12 and January 14 at the Barbican.
by: Mike Cobley
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