Hofesh Shechter: «Uprising», «In Your Rooms»

A young Israeli living in London, Hofesh Shechter is cutting a swathe with his fresh-off-the-streets dance. In the first piece of tonight’s double bill, “Uprising,” a gang of young men in skater looks emerge striding from the darkness of the back of the stage – and proceed to hang out together, bounce off each other, interact. They shake and shimmy in pop video style. Hunched over, with arms hanging down, they move across the stage like apes, or hop about like overgrown fleas. More balletic postures are performed with a flourish, trailing off into nonchalant resignation.

The set works with the stark contrast offered by spotlights against dry ice ­– a pared-down, post-modern version of those classic city-street scenes where steam rises from manholes in the asphalt and neon lights flash. Hofesh Shechter puts the soundtrack together himself – here, an industrial mix of pounding drums, slashing knives and other white noise. It’s a dark setting for the seven men to play out their ambiguous relationships to one another. This is particularly evocatively expressed when they hold each others’ heads in their hands, a tender gesture which soon switches to pure aggression, highlighting just how ...