> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# FESTIVAL REVIEW: Double Murder by Hofesh Schechter Company
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/festival-review-double-murder-by-hofesh-schechter-company/
- Published: 2022-05-11T17:16:18.000Z
- Updated: 2022-05-11T14:45:46.000Z
- Description: Brian Butler finds a modern dance offering deeply disturbing
- Author: Brian Butler
- Tags: Arts, Brighton Festival, Dance, Reviews, Brighton Dome

Choreographer Hofesh Schechter is a former Brighton Festival guest director and he has stormed back with a deeply disturbing but relevant dance programme.

Double Murder opens with a wonderfully funny and energetic little number to Offenbach’s Can Can, but the mood soon darkens to his company’s first full-length offering Clowns. To a soundscape also created by Schechter whose rhythmic drum heartbeats get more loud and insistent, we are treated to ever-changing tableaux of chaos and violent murder – well executions actually.

Schechter is the puppet-master, controlling the slaughter but also being a recurrent victim of it. The meaning is clearly that the more we are exposed to violence and death in society the more we become used to it – emphasised by the jolly jigging steps of the executioners.

It’s visually stunning and deeply disturbing. The absolutely brilliant lighting programme gives us split-second snapshots of the action, matched by the 10 dancers’ ability to get into new scenarios almost instantly. Schechter’s signature movements – loping bent over ape like motions and reptilian writhings are truly shocking but scarily entertaining.

The second offering The Fix is altogether more meditative and calming. A highly distressed individual is calmed and comforted and eventually put into a front row stalls seat. This is followed by this piece’s 7 dancers going out into the auditorium, warmly hugging the audience and making a post-Covid point of our new normal.

It’s a truly imaginative, emotional and ultimately uplifting evening.

**[Double Murder was at Brighton Dome as part of Brighton Festival.](https://brightonfestival.org/whats-on/hofesh-shechter-company-double-murder-4536/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)**

Check out Schechter company shows at [Hofesh.co.uk](https://hofesh.co.uk/?ref=scenemag.co.uk) and other Festival shows at Brightonfestival.org