GRAND FINALE

Choreography & Music by Hofesh Shechter
Performed by Hofesh Shechter Company

DATES: 21-23 March 2019
LOCATION: ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre
www.aaf.co.nz

Part-gig, part-dance, part-theatre and wholly original: there is no other way to describe Grand Finale, the latest work of internationally celebrated choreographer Hofesh Shechter. As one of the centrepiece, exclusive works of the 2019 Auckland Arts Festival, Grand Finale is spectacularly bold and ambitious contemporary dance featuring ten dancers and live music performed by an onstage band.

Grand Finale is at once comic, bleak and beautiful, evoking a world at odds with itself; full of anarchic energy and violent comedy.

For aficionados of contemporary dance, this will be the Hofesh Shechter Company’s Auckland debut and the first time the company has been to New Zealand in seven years. For those new to contemporary dance, Grand Finale offers the best possible introduction – bold, irreverent and completely exhilarating.

“A mature and magnificent work”

– The Stage (UK)

Choreographer, dancer, musician and composer, Shechter is one of the trendsetters of contemporary dance. He creates work that is rough, unorthodox, dynamic and exciting – and composes much of the accompanying music himself. Like many Israeli choreographers, Shechter’s work is almost always politically charged. In this instance Grand Finale refers our world hurtling towards its apocalyptic end.

Shechter’s style embraces an energy that captivates the audience. His dancers use rapid movements full of raw energy, almost as if by remote control. In Grand Finale, Shechter’s vision lies somewhere between comedy, danse macabre and apocalypse, in surreal scenes full of beauty, grace and brutality.

With his energetic, powerful choreographies, combined with his unique soundscapes, Shechter creates universes that are raw yet delicately beautiful. Grand Finale is Shechter’s first collaboration with designer Tom Scutt. The score includes works by Franz Léhar and Pyotr Tchaikovsky, as well as his own compositions.

Shechter is proud of the truly eclectic group of onstage musicians, once calling them “a combination of musicians that you can’t quite label ...a cosy, warm, hearty band. Something to hold on to. The constant, beating heart of the piece.”

The band features a small group of musicians, who play 18 instruments between them including cellos, viola, harmonium, guitar, trumpet, clarinet, a variety of eastern and oriental flutes and drums and a Persian Santoor.

Grand Finale premiered at La Villette Paris with Théâtre de la Ville in 2017.

GRAND FINALE
Choreography & Music by Hofesh Shechter
Performed by Hofesh Shechter Company

REVIEWS

★★★★★ “A mature and magnificent work…sulphurous, visceral and surprisingly tender” The Stage (UK)

★★★★ “The ultimate danse macabre… Hofesh Shechter’s existential anguish and his often beautiful choreography fight to the death” The Observer (UK)

★★★★ “Heart-stopping… Hofesh Shechter’s [Grand Finale] has arrived with a bang” Financial Times (UK)

★★★★ “a wild waltz for the end of time… [Grand Finale] ranks among Shechter’s most sophisticated creations” The Guardian (UK)

“Life flirts with morbidity in Grand Finale, a touching and exhilarating work loaded with emotion. The Israeli choreographer, in his artistic prime, reveals once again the evocative power of his abstract and expressionist creations based on a mastery of rhythm and explosive sounds […] Not to be missed” Le Devoir (Can)