How to begin to describe the experience I've just had. I could say vibrant, I could say innovative, I could even say transformative... but there really are no letters that I could string together into word form that would sufficiently relay the depth of excitement I felt upon seeing the international work of theatre/dance/acrobatics/tech calle Fuerza Bruta (Brute Force).
The theatre is another unique space, more like a giant cement warehouse than a conventional performance space. And a DJ is blasting dance mixes as we gather in the courtyard outside. As they open the doors, we all poor into a huge playing space heavy with haze and dripping in magenta light from above. There are no seats. We gather like sheep, all standing around anxiously staring up at the light and ceiling as if looking for a sign of what is coming to us. The doors close and flood lights and our attention is drawn to focus by flood lights and fans from the corners of the space. Then we see the silhouette of a man walking in place into a bright light. His pace or direction doesnt change, but suddenly our perspective changes to his profile instrad of his back. As we crane our necks in intrigue we realize that he is on a moving platform and it is movinging out into the crowd bringing his world among us. The techies were not only acting as the grunts to push this platform, but also working crowd control to move us out of the way of it. Suddenly the music changes and the man starts running, there is a large fan blowing water and bits of paper in his face as he desperately fights to stay on pace with the speed of the tredmill spinning out of his control beneathe his feet. A loud gunshot, he grabs his chest which explodes in blood seeping out onto his white shirt, and blackout. Lights up, he removes his white business shirt to another just like it underneathe and continues walking to the same routine, now passing plastic chairs placed and replaced by the techies, and other people walking in the opposite direction and disappearing on the other end. But he alone continues forward. A classic display of an individual vs. society, sisyphus-like struggle for survival. No dialogue necessary.
Finally the techies present him with a bed. Obviously grateful for rest, he lays himself down, as a metallic curtain is drawn across the oposite wall behind him. We see his dreams unfold as two girls on harnesses float out and dance sideways in the air against the waves of light on this curtain. At first peaceful and dreamlike, then again a sudden change in music incites frenetic energy and they fight to break free of their harnesses. Black out. The man wakes and walks.
His platform moves him to the oposite side of the room, where he encounters 5 people on a similar platform surrounded by cardboard walls and crowded with plastic furniture. They move about anxiously trying the extend their limbs in an effort to dance in this clausterphobic space. A change in the music, they realize the ludicrous of their spatial containment, and begin tearing down the cardboard walls, spraynig bits of paper and glitter everywhere, throwing the plastic furniture, and utterly obliterating the maufactured walls holding them in. Now they can dance! I think at this point in the show I thought to myself, wow... performing in something like this day after day is way more than a job, way more than a workout, way more than a performance even... its a daily celebration of life and human liberty!
They bring their frantic dancing out among the herd of audience and smash styrofoam boards over our heads, exploding more confetti and glitter, that the techies were probably all too excited to sweep up afterwards, and inviting us to break out and dance with them. They all but turned the theatre into a nightclub!
Then our attention is drawn upwards as the metallic curtain washes over us like a wave. Eventually it regresses and our skyward gaze reveals a pool/giant slip-and-slide over our heads filled with a few inches of water lit from above and gathering around the silhouette of a body. The water washes over her as it ebbs and flows from side to side like waves in a pool. She is joined by another, then another, and then a fourth body, all sliding, tumbling, jumping, playing in the water and casting the most spectacular patterns in the water for us underneath to see. At one point, a girl poled her head underwater and looks directly at the audience, the pool is lowered down to just above our heads, we touch the thick clear plastic holding their water world in place and literally probe the fourth wall in effort to feel that inate human connection between us, the masses, and the dancing girls in a world of water overhead. Strobe lights, water dance, pulsing music, and the pool lifts itself back up to the rafters leaving us with a beautiful image of four bodies joined together like a puzzle in the sky. Black out.
The corner flood lights and fans signify, like book ends, that we have reaching the end of our journey. But we still must resolve the story of the running man. His platform is brought back out among us and we see him sprinting and breaking through cardboard walls being wheeled at him. Finally he is joined by two others this time heading in his same direction, all with harnesses and fly lines. They join hands in relief and solidarity and run forward together. They are met by a staircase, wheeled out by the techs of course, which they mount only to find a dead end at the top... or an open end if you will, literally they stand hand-in-hand on a precipice. The music drives them instinctively to keep pressing forward, and with no other option, they jump, just as the final cardboard wall is wheeled out in timing so precisely rehearsed it only looked spontaneous, and burst through in an explosion of confetti that covers the audience and showers us in the joy of their freedom and victory.
The cast comes out among us again, as the platform is wheeled away, and the lights and music convert the audience once again into a dance floor, all of us in unison, dancing to the beats of human liberty and potential. And then... in an unexplained phenomenon, it starts raining on the dance floor, nurturing, cleansing, baptizing us all, the dancing mob of people, all at one in our estacy!
Then the doors open, and we are set free to go forth and break through the boundaries in our own world.
Like I said... a theatrical experience unlike any I've ever whitnessed in my two decades of life, and mind you I've been attending shows since I was in the womb! So ingeniously visualized and crafted and realized and executed. The lights, the music, the imagery, the acrobatics, the timing, the audience participation, the structure of the story and the way it told itself without any script necessary. I really dont know any way to truly convey how thrilled and priviledged I felt to whitness and experience it. I really wish I'd had a few of my theatre family members to join me, drenched like rats, for drinks and discussion in the restaurant afterwards. Thats probably the only way this weekend could have been any better.
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