New York City Center, New York, NY.
October 11, 2025.
Red Carpet, choreographed and conceived by Hofesh Shechter and performed by the Paris Opera Ballet, is a visceral experience that disrupts expectations of traditional ballet. The work opens with a blast of dissonant, raucous music and the slow parting of a lush, red velvet curtain, revealing an ensemble of 13 dancers in frenzied movement, as they seek and embody the music’s driving rhythm.
A massive chandelier, the centerpiece of the work, lowers, instantly transforming the stage into a decadent 1920s-style party — a scene straight out of The Great Gatsby. The dancers circle the light fixture, continuing their ecstatic, Dionysian revelry. A solo dancer (in suspenders like a Gatsby character) climbs onto the stage and into a spotlight. He seems to have a story to tell and dances like he’s possessed. Big movements are punctuated by a cartwheel, a ball change, and then he collapses, twitching on the floor.
As the music quiets and a bell chimes, the atmosphere shifts dramatically. A single dancer in purple remains, shedding her dress to reveal a nude bodysuit. The shadowy light is a stark contrast to the warmer yellow of the party scene. The work becomes quiet and contemplative. Dancers gather in clumps, facing upstage, their arms rising and drifting softly, riding the ethereal sound wave of the music. The initial frenzied passion gives way to a sense of repentance.
After a blackout, a moon-like glow reveals the dancers seated in rows, smoke curling above them and through the air. Their gestures turn ritualistic: arms rising slowly as if in prayer or a clap, accompanied by ethereal choral music and a soft snare drumbeat. Some gently rise to drag the seated ones upstage and lay them down. Then, all hell breaks loose again but in a gentler manner. One dancer brings her arms overhead as if she were floating or swimming above the group as a downstage row headbangs to a synth guitar.
In the final section, the bodies that were once sensual or repentant are stripped down to a primal, corporeal state. Clumped tightly together and facing upstage, the dancers move with minimal, slow locomotive gestures — walking, shuffling, side-stepping. Their hunched, crouching forms evoke insects morphing into a new phase.
A dancer suddenly breaks off with funkier movement. Does he remember the party? The bug dance morphs into a slower version of the dance party. Dancers are enrobed in a haze of light and softly move across the stage as the chandelier descends again and the piece ends as lights fade, and choral music echoes in the darkness.
The music, a collaboration between Yaron Engler and Hofesh Shechter (who also designed the set), is a mix of the raucous and the ethereal: punk-meets-free-jazz, interspersed with Middle Eastern twinges and softly emerging choral voices with Olivier Koundouno (cello), Marguerite Cox (double bass) and Brice Perda (wind instruments), who are positioned upstage on an elevated platform. Set design was also conceived by Shechter. Chanel’s outstanding costumes mix fashion genres from the 1920s, ’40s, steam punk and Hollywood evoked in a bedazzling red sparkly dress. The flesh-colored bodysuits neutralize the performers, making them appear amorphous and emphasize the human form over individual identity. The lighting design by Tom Visser masterfully elevates every textural detail.
The ensemble of expert movers performed the sinewy, flowing movements and the small, articulated, percussive ones with equal distinction. Matching the music’s time, tempo, energy and power, they effectively teased out a drama with gestural clarity amidst the choreographic abstraction and provided the lens to view Red Carpet not only as a dance piece but as a visual work of art.
By Nicole Colbert of Dance Informa.
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