POLITICAL MOTHER - A REVIEW OF THE NEW HOFESH SCHECHTER MODERN DANCE PRODUCTION

Schechter,  the rising star choreographer, premiered Political Mother at the 2010 Brighton Festival to critical acclaim and now brings a reworked version to Sadler’s Wells with more dancers and musicians.  Schechter wrote the score as well as managing the company, quite an achievement for the 36 year old London based Israeli.

This is a total theatre production, impressively integrating dance, music and lighting.

The front seats of the Wells stalls were removed to make a promenade section that was more mosh pit than Proms.

The musicians are the backdrop to the stage: mounted on scaffolding in rows and include a rock band, strings and huge Japanese drums.  A literal and auditory wall of sound. In the centre is a microphone commandeered sometimes by a ranting dictator figure, alternating with a heavy metal rock singer.

The percussion section was like a Brazilian Battaria. The floor shook to the sound, piling on more sensory input through the audience’s feet and guts.

Schechter gives us vignettes of adulating crowds fired by the dictator’s oratory. We see fans of the rock singer dancing in a mosh pit. Other scenes show war, defeat, madness and splintered relationships as the dance troupe move to sad strings and sinister military snare drummers.

The coordinated group movements of the dancers, for example moving as a sad gaggle of refugees, give real power to this piece.  Although some of the couple dances, which seemed to show relationships damaged by war, were full of emotion. A lone dancer, apparently driven insane by war, writhing and shaking uncontrollably,  left a strong impression.Sometimes the troupe just dance to give expression to the eclectic score of rock and baroque like string sections and frantic percussion led stanzas. Salted into this mix are folk dance themes that could be either Arabic or Jewish.

The dancers mostly wear shabby Chinese communist party style garb in muted colours. The lighting is moody and bleak.

The surprising finale sees folk dancing again and ends with beautiful, synchronized movements  to Joni Mitchell’s  ‘Both Sides Now’. A somewhat inexplicable choice given the heavy themes we see earlier – but maybe the audience could not be allowed to go home feeling they must commit Hara-kiri like a Samurai does in the opening scene.