Artistic Director: Diqui James
Offering spectacle after spectacle, Fuerza Bruta returns to the Roundhouse with their dance-themed Aven. Featuring lots of iterations of their signature running man and lots of wind machines, it’s great to have the Argentinian company back, even though Aven is not its best work.
However, it’s always thrilling to look at, with the performers looking gorgeous in the pastel-coloured suits designed by Andrea Mattio. But like these costumes, there’s something a little too sunny about Aven. Indeed, one performer announces that it’s ‘the happiest show on earth’. And there are a few times you’d be hard-pressed to disagree with him, especially if you’re being doused by liquid oxygen by a man with orange hair as Icona Pop’s I Love It plays.
At other times the dance routines might be better performed on a stage like Sadler’s Wells where the company could experiment even more with light, technology and image. As it is, in the Roundhouse, standing in a crowded dancefloor you’re always waiting insatiably for the next jaw-dropping marvel to appear from behind the heavy black curtains at one end of the historic venue. They come pretty quickly – giant inflatables, moving walkways, more wind machines, confetti guns – but the defining climax seems to be forever out of reach.
Despite being stood for 60-odd minutes – although seats are provided for those who can’t stand for so long – there’s little sense of being herded around the space as most acts take place above the audience’s heads. Of course, this approach means that Aven is certainly more intimate and immersive than any Cirque du Soleil show, but it’s still a strangely passive show, unlike that, say, of Fuerza Bruta’s predecessors De La Guarda when you were really part of the action. Here, in Aven, the most interactive aspect is trying to touch the flipper of a giant whale as it jerks just out of arm’s reach.
In many ways, Aven is like being a nightclub, albeit with an older crowd and with the opportunity to be tucked up in bed at a decent hour. It’s clever, and it’s fun, and the performers and technicians work their socks off. But on the tube home, you may feel a little unfulfilled.
Runs until 1 September 2024
The Reviews Hub Score
Too sunny
