The world-famous Argentinian performing company returns to its London home, presenting their latest montage for a strictly limited run playing until the end of summer. Guillermo Nazara shares his views on the show, to let us know if its intense display of acrobatics ends up feeling high up in the air.
“Esto es… FUERZA BRUTA”, yells proudly the show’s self-appointed emcee, as she and her entourage give a roaring drum roll preceding the spectacle that’s about to unravel. She has a reason to be so passionate about it – the piece is, in all fairness, intense to watch, and God only knows how it must feel spend over an hour attached to suspension wires while doing every possible acrobatic in the book. Their pride is understandable. The work, however, is a different story – sort to speak.
London’s Roundhouse has seen the return of a dear old guest. Last night, the Argentinian performing group made its latest comeback to their UK headquarters, bringing up their latest montage through a new set of highly physical renditions – putting dance, visuals and gimmicks altogether to concoct an almost graspable fantasia of picturesque pizzazz. Parting from an extremely compelling idea, the production manages to regale us with a few moments of true awe – proving both ample technique and innate showmanship throughout their numbers, while discreetly hinting some tiny bits of artistic sensitivity.
Sadly, though, this doesn’t translate to the overall vibe of the work – which, at too many points, tends to look unstructured and slightly unpolished. Though every part is able to create anticipation and, all in all, give us some substantious portions of entertainment, the interest is, unfortunately, likely to go down just a few minutes after each interpretation commences – basically, due to the fact that there is not much else to see other than a little too long repetition of what we’ve already experienced.
The lack of a proper narrative may be, in all honesty, the main argument behind the show’s partially missing ineffectiveness. We don’t have any characters to follow. And no journey to go through. Instead, different gimmicks (sometimes, a bit unjustified) keep happening. And though its overall impressiveness cannot be denied, it’s also difficult to ignore how the structure and polish as show of this kind would be expected to have is somehow just not there.
Some acknowledgment (even praise) must be given to the performers, as their commitment to the piece is genuinely infectious. They love what they do and they want people to love it just as much. Occasionally, we can be enticed by that notion, and feel gripped by the many attempts the production makes to keep us amused. Yet, without a stronger thread to interlace both its contents and its audience, there’s very little chance left for the viewers’ ties not to be severed at some point – as it’s hard to develop any suitable connection with a show which, though designed to beguile the senses, is still in need of more solid sentiments.
An indubitable effort flaunting some appreciable accomplishment, Fuerza Bruta’s latest creation boasts their forte by triggering a few initial gasps, but loses its strength as it progresses by proving itself incapable of maintaining the same level of astonishment and seduction all throughout. Relying too much on gadgets and tricks, while sacrificing cohesiveness and style, the montage flags several correlations with the 80s megamusical concept apart from its somehow old-fashioned looks – wistfully, not realising the basics of what made some of them back then the hits they still are today: it’s not that much about how you tell it, but about what you’re trying to tell. As for the latter, that question remains unanswered.
All pictures credit to Johan Persson.
Fuerza Bruta: Aven plays at London’s Roundhouse until 31 August. Tickets are available on the following link.