Review Fuerza Bruta, Aven ★★★★★

Impossible to pigeonhole, Fuerza Bruta (Brute Force) is surely Argentina’s most thrilling export, a young troupe whose latest show Aven (a reference to heaven) is a unique, audacious combination of aerial acrobatics, thumping dance music and light and sound show. You stand on the floor of the Roundhouse as if in a club or a rave, a tightly packed crowd constantly urged by the performers to feel the groove, whether they stand on a raised stage rhythmically banging drums as if to infect us with their seemingly inexhaustible energy, or floating above our heads in dazzling feats of acrobatics.

The hour-long show consists of a series of unconnected numbers happening all around and above the audience. The drumming sequence acts as a kind of introduction, after which a vast inflatable gyrating globe hovers into view above our heads with four performers in harnesses vigorously striding around it faster and faster.

Fuerza Bruta, Aven at the Roundhouse. Photo: Johan Persson
There follows a man in a wind tube, climbing horizontally amid a flurry of confetti; another hovers at the centre of a circle of outsize paper butterflies. A large perspex box is lowered from above, containing a layer of water and woman who splashes around creating all manner of visual effects.

Water plays a key part in Aven, whether sprayed onto the audience (you're bound to get a little wet) or into the air where it combines with outsize confetti and Gaspar Potocnik's creative lighting to add an extra visual element to the show.

Fuerza Bruta, Aven at the Roundhouse. Photo: Johan Persson
Other numbers rely on dancing of the hyper-energetic club variety, the performers dressed in impeccably elegant unisex pastel coloured suits and shirts appearing among the crowd on a moving walkway that extends into the centre of the floor temporary cutting the space into two.

For the finale a vast inflatable blue whale takes to the air, manipulated from the inside by two performers that can be seen struggling with a complex iron contraption that determines the leviathan’s movements, deliberately forcing the audience to dodge its fins and tails.

Fuerza Bruta, Aven at the Roundhouse. Photo: Johan Persson
Aven, directed by company founder Ricardo Martin ‘Diqui’ James marks Fuerza Bruta’s return to the Roundhouse after a 10 year absence; and judging by the pre-show excited chatter, many of those present were fans from a decade ago, who couldn’t wait to relive the experience. It’s billed as the happiest show the company has ever produced and for once the billing is accurate.

So what if the individual numbers don’t add up to a coherent concept? And so what if by the end of an hour mostly looking up you end up with a crick on your neck? You’ll be able to work it off in the post show party, helmed by the young, glamorous guest DJ Luz, who returns to the stage after kicking off proceedings with a lively pre-show set.

The show's total immersion extends to the Roundhouse roof terrace, where throughout the run Argentinian food, wine and cocktails will be served (weather permitting, obviously...)