Review: IN THE BRAIN (Queen Elizabeth Hall)

Review by Sam Woodward

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The first sound in IN THE BRAIN seems to come from somewhere far below the surface. Eight bodies ripple through the darkness as though suspended underwater. They fold, sway and dart around one another, resembling coral disturbed by a current, a shoal of fish changing direction or one strange organism slowly learning how to breathe. An enveloping soundscape completes the illusion, submerging the Queen Elizabeth Hall as the rhythm begins to rise and Hofesh Shechter’s magnetic choreography pulls us deeper into its world. The effect is strange, immediate and utterly absorbing.

The 55-minute work is performed by Shechter II, Hofesh Shechter Company’s paid development programme for emerging dancers aged between 18 and 25. Developed from Shechter’s earlier piece CAVE, which premiered at New York’s City Center Dance Festival in 2022, IN THE BRAIN asks its audience to experience the work instinctively rather than search for a conventional story. It unfolds as a journey through a world that feels equally dream-like and club-like, moving between ritual, confinement, sleep and euphoric release.

Shechter’s choreography constantly plays with the relationship between instinct and control. The dancers appear wild, spontaneous and sometimes almost feral, yet every gesture is delivered with impeccable timing. They move in complete synchronisation, their bodies jolting, folding and recoiling as though responding to the same electrical impulse. At extraordinary speed, they tumble to the floor, roll across it and spring upright again, making movements of immense athletic difficulty appear completely natural. The floor work is particularly astonishing, combining the force and momentum of breakdance with the fluidity of contemporary dance. What looks like complete abandon is built upon almost unnerving precision.

That tension between freedom and control shapes Shechter’s choreography. The dancers seem liberated by the music, but just as often appear trapped inside it. At one moment they resemble worshippers engaged in prayer; at another, prisoners testing the limits of their confinement before attempting to break free. The group later gathers as though around an invisible campfire, sitting and watching as individuals step forward to move alone. There is something almost childlike in this exchange, recalling a classroom show and tell in which the simple act of being witnessed becomes its own form of connection. These quieter passages are beautifully judged, allowing individual personalities briefly to emerge before the music intensifies and draws them back into a shared frenzy.

All eight members of Shechter II throw their heart, soul and apparently inexhaustible physical energy into the performance. Their unity is remarkable, particularly given the speed and complexity of the choreography, but the ensemble never becomes anonymous. Ella Roberts and Teige Bisnought are especially magnetic, repeatedly drawing the eye without disrupting the balance of the group. Roberts brings a fierce concentration and remarkable fluidity to the movement, while Bisnought possesses a commanding physical presence, equally compelling in the production’s explosive club sequences and moments of near stillness. Their individuality makes the points at which they are absorbed back into the collective feel even more powerful.

Shechter, responsible for both the choreography and principal music, creates a score that ebbs and flows with remarkable intelligence. The submerged sounds of the opening give way to something almost ceremonial before deep bass and pounding rhythms take possession of the room. Brief stretches of silence and stillness resemble sleep, only for the music to return with renewed force. Frédéric Despierre’s sound collaboration and additional music from electronic duo Âme make this an experience felt as physically as it is heard. The score does not merely accompany the dancers but appears to control their bodies. As hands repeatedly clutch at heads, the title acquires a more troubling charge: are they expressing the rhythm inside their minds, or attempting to resist something that has already taken possession of them?

Tom Visser’s lighting design is every bit as essential as the choreography and music. Beams travel across the stage, revealing and obscuring bodies, altering their apparent scale and at times making the dancers seem suddenly larger than life. Figures materialise in the haze and vanish again, preventing the space from settling into any fixed reality. Osnat Kelner’s costumes similarly balance unity with individuality. Flowing fabrics in beige, brown, green, blue and muted red create a shared visual language, while flashes of glitter, a suit and a nightgown-like dress suggest people arriving from different lives. They are never uniform, but belong unmistakably to the same world, preserving fragments of personality even as the choreography gradually absorbs them into the group.

The refusal to offer fixed meaning is central to IN THE BRAIN, and much of its power lies in the associations it allows the audience to form. Its movement between imprisonment, prayer, sleep, psychological distress and nightclub release can, however, feel more associative than cumulative, with some images disappearing before their significance has fully developed. The emotional journey is occasionally harder to follow than the physical one, but the extraordinary force of the performance is never in doubt. IN THE BRAIN is an exhilarating fusion of choreography, sound and light, delivered with astonishing precision and complete commitment. Its meaning may remain elusive, but for 55 feverish minutes, the pull of its rhythm is almost impossible to resist.

IN THE BRAIN plays at Southbank Centre until 25 July. Tickets from https://southbank.london/whats-on/hofesh-shechter-in-the-brain 

Photos by Todd MacDonald