Hofesh Shechter Choreographer

Jerusalem-born Hofesh Shechter is an Israeli dancer and choreographer. After initially learning traditional folk dancing, he studied at the Rubin Academy of Dance and Music in Jerusalem and made his career debut as a dancer with the Batsheva Dance Company before moving on to work with the choreographers Wim Vandekeybus, Paul Selwyn-Norton, Tero Saarinen and Inbal Pinto. In 2002, he moved to London where he choreographed his first work, Fragments (2003). In 2004 he became a resident artist at The Place in London. It was during this period that he created Cult (2004, in partnership with the Sadler’s Wells Theatre—which earned him an Audience Choice Award), Uprising (2006; inspired by the urban riots in France), and In your rooms (2007, which received the Dance Critics’ Award). In 2008 he founded the Hofesh Shechter Company and took up residency at the Brighton Dome. He was also named an associate artist at the Sadler’s Wells in London as well as Guest Director of the 2014 Brighton Festival. Since then, Hofesh Shechter has continued to enrich his company’s repertoire with new works which he presents on the company’s international tours: The Choreographer’s Cut (2009, Sadler’s Wells), The Art of Not Looking Back (2009, Brighton Festival), Political Mother (2010), Survivor (2012, Barbican Centre; in collaboration with Anthony Gormley), Sun (2013), Barbarians (2015, Berliner Festspiele), C.W. Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice (2015 #HOFEST Festival, and Royal Opera House) and more recently, Grand Finale (La Villette 2017, in partnership with the Théâtre de la Ville) for which he received an Olivier Award. Hofesh Shechter also choreographs for other international dance companies, namely, the Royal Ballet, the Nederlands Dans Theater 1, the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, the Bern Ballet and the Batsheva ensemble. He has also collaborated on projects for theatre, television and opera, creating works like Two Boys with the composer Nico Mulhy (the New York Metropolitan Opera, 2013) or presenting his Tony-award-winning version of Fiddler on the Roof (Broadway, 2015). In 2018, The Art of Not Looking Back entered the repertoire of the Paris Opera Ballet.