Part-rave, part-circus, all joy – the hectically exhilarating new show from Argentinian troupe Fuerza Bruta (it means brute force) feels like it’s capturing a mood.
A series of bold, visually ravishing stunts performed above the milling audience by sinewy bodies to a sternum-juddering drums-and-electro soundtrack, it asks us to banish the looming anxiety of the past several years and celebrate being alive.
Four figures run round a large, dangling Earth globe, their suspended bodies parallel to the floor; vapour streams over a woman twisting in a wind tunnel; a massive, inflatable blue whale bobs over the crowd, manipulated by two men inside, with silken waves rippling in the ceiling overhead.
There’s no narrative, though there’s a vague, eco-friendly feel to the whole thing. Apart from the vast explosions of paper from piñatas and air-cannons, that is. Oh, and the water a DJ sprays into a huge fan with a patio jetwasher, getting us all mistily wet.
But let’s not get too pernickety. The prevailing tone of Diqui James’s production is of jolting exuberance. Many of the images upend the traditional spectator experience. We’re underneath, looking up, as a woman threshes in a transparent water tank, her movements mirrored by a man hooked to its underside.
Or we’re parted like the Red Sea as a mobile travelator is shunted into our midst, on which male and female hotties perform explosive high-impact dance before flying off on wires. Like Guys & Dolls and many recent shows, Aven foregrounds the unsung organizational and protective skills of stage management teams.
Although the choreography is more energetic than subtle, it has a febrile sexiness. The cast wear baggily rippling, androgynous pastel suits, half-trousered, half-skirted, but still flashing plenty of ab, pec and jutting hipbone.
Half the ensemble open and close the show hammering at a battery of drums like pantingly triumphal rock stars; the other half are up above, clutching each other around the globe at the start, and swinging in a polyamorous huddle through a sprinkler downpour at the end, their hands trailing through our upheld fingertips. The curtain call segues into a dance party.
Kudos is due to James, composer Gaby Kerpel and Jorge Carto, who built all the wondrous kit. Aven is always ingenious and full of flair, appealing to our hearts, guts and jittering feet. There are no bad views, but it’s particularly captivating if you get close to the action. I was so enthralled that many of my jotted notes made no sense and some of them were upside down.
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I got the same euphoric hit from Aven as I did from the London debut at the Roundhouse of De La Guarda, the company Fuerza grew out of, in 1999. I’d just got off the plane after my honeymoon and the pinwheeling figures on bungee cords blasted through my jetlag. We had a newish government and a resurgent England football team back then, too. Just saying.
The Roundhouse, to September 1; roundhouse.org.uk
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