Sensory Overload
It's the biggest, most expensive and now most well-recieved shows ever seen at the fringe. Sam Friedman goes behind the scenes at the multi-sensory spectacular, Fuerzabruta
| 18 Aug 2007
It’s early evening on the third Thursday of the Fringe and at The Black Tent they’re gearing up for another 1200-person sell-out crowd. “Welcome to the mad house,” warns a security guard, ushering us onto the site of Fuerzabruta. He’s not joking. The patch of grass that normally sits untouched opposite Ocean Terminal recently gave birth to an enormous black tent and the surrounding area is now an obstacle course of crates, wires and busy-looking staff, talking loudly and authoritatively into walkie-talkies.
At the public entrance energy levels are even higher. Excited punters stream into the venue bar, speculating wildly about the multi-sensory spectacular they’re about to enjoy. It’s the biggest, most spectacular and most expensive show ever seen at the Fringe. But now, after weeks of sell-out performances and five star reviews, Fuerzabruta can finally stake its claim as one of the Festival’s most successful.
Translated from Spanish as “brute force”, the show has caught Edinburgh’s imagination and the city is awash with talk of floating swimming pools and flying nymphets. Lasting just over an hour (and charging a cool £25 a ticket), Fuerzabruta is a frantic mix of circus, rave and dance, where audience members are led around blindly as a series of scenes unfold around and above them. Running on a treadmill, a man sprints towards a lit doorway, crashing through polystyrene walls on his way. Overhead, a man and a woman cling either side of a transparent, orange-tinted pool, desperately writhing and squirming to connect with each other.
A persistent assault on the senses, Fuerzabruta is relentless, narrative less and spectacular. It is an adventure into the very depths of your imagination.
Tonight, though, the scene inside the tent is rather more serene. A group of 12 elegant, muscular, semi-naked Argentines face each other in a circle, practising Tai Chi to a gentle trip-hop soundtrack. They are the performers that make Fuerzabruta happen and in half an hour their serenity will be rudely interrupted as they perform feats of breathtaking bravado. “Physically, it’s very tough on our bodies,” says Juan Martin Ozan, one of the male performers. “We love it, but with nine shows a week we are exhausted. We need a massage every week just to release the tension.”
Fuerzabruta is the brainchild of Dicqui James, the Argentine director behind the experimental theatre hit Villa Villa. That production travelled the world for a staggering 13 years before James started to feel the creative drain of such a massive commercial success. He finally left the company with composer Gaby Kerpel in 2001, and together they began a wildly ambitious project called Fuerzabruta. The idea was to create multi-sensory show based upon a series of sensations rather than a narrative. In particular James wanted to create a theatre-going experience that felt real (“Real as a dog,” to quote his programme notes precisely). “We don’t need to act,” explains Ozan, “The things that happen, the running, the smashing into walls, that’s real, and people can see the true emotion on our faces.”
Three and a half years after beginning work, the project was finally, lovingly unveiled in Buenos Aires in 2005. It was an immediate popular and critical success, going on to tour in London and Bogotá, Colombia, before beginning a 72-week European tour in Edinburgh.
However, Fuerzabruta very nearly didn’t make it to the capital. On it’s way over from Colombia much of the show’s equipment was set upon by Colombian drugs police, who mercilessly tore open the massive steel crates and damaged much of the expensive apparatus. Among other things, police slashed open the floor of the giant floating swimming pool, causing the company to delay their Fringe opening by two days. There was also supposed to be an extra black tent shipped over from Australia to widen the bar area, but this was destroyed by a massive storm on the way over.
It’s also fair to say the show hasn’t appealed to everyone in Edinburgh. In particular, some critics have pointed to the lack of narrative as a serious shortcoming, arguing that the show has no meaning, no heart, no soul.
Debora Torres, another performer, waves away this criticism with a nonchalant Argentine finger. “The press night is always the worst,” she says. “The show only works when the crowd are part of the show and journalists always just stand there looking miserable. They want a story, a meaning, but the whole point is that we’re not going to tell you what it means, it’s up to you. It’s about your imagination.”
Indeed one of the most interesting aspects of Fuerzabruta is the number of possible meanings available. I tell Martine that for me the intensity of the colours and the sensory onslaught feels almost psychedelic and drug-inspired. “But you see that is the beauty of the show,” he answers excitedly. “You saw drugs. Dicqui (the director) saw dreams and for me it’s like a strange human experiment.” “Yeh”, Torres interrupts. “For me it’s always felt like a human version of a video game. The point is you have to relax, open your mind.”
Inside the black tent pounding dance music has replaced chill-out and people are starting to stream in. Within minutes, the show has taken hold. Ozan, Torres and the other performers are transformed from laid-back South Americans into otherworldly acrobats, assaulting the senses with one incredible scene after another. Gazing at the spellbound crowd, heads tilted upwards, faces smiling or open-mouthed in wonderment; it’s difficult to be sceptical about Fuerzabruta. Bold, unique and audacious, it is a production and experience of truly epic proportions.
At the public entrance energy levels are even higher. Excited punters stream into the venue bar, speculating wildly about the multi-sensory spectacular they’re about to enjoy. It’s the biggest, most spectacular and most expensive show ever seen at the Fringe. But now, after weeks of sell-out performances and five star reviews, Fuerzabruta can finally stake its claim as one of the Festival’s most successful.
Translated from Spanish as “brute force”, the show has caught Edinburgh’s imagination and the city is awash with talk of floating swimming pools and flying nymphets. Lasting just over an hour (and charging a cool £25 a ticket), Fuerzabruta is a frantic mix of circus, rave and dance, where audience members are led around blindly as a series of scenes unfold around and above them. Running on a treadmill, a man sprints towards a lit doorway, crashing through polystyrene walls on his way. Overhead, a man and a woman cling either side of a transparent, orange-tinted pool, desperately writhing and squirming to connect with each other.
A persistent assault on the senses, Fuerzabruta is relentless, narrative less and spectacular. It is an adventure into the very depths of your imagination.
Tonight, though, the scene inside the tent is rather more serene. A group of 12 elegant, muscular, semi-naked Argentines face each other in a circle, practising Tai Chi to a gentle trip-hop soundtrack. They are the performers that make Fuerzabruta happen and in half an hour their serenity will be rudely interrupted as they perform feats of breathtaking bravado. “Physically, it’s very tough on our bodies,” says Juan Martin Ozan, one of the male performers. “We love it, but with nine shows a week we are exhausted. We need a massage every week just to release the tension.”
Fuerzabruta is the brainchild of Dicqui James, the Argentine director behind the experimental theatre hit Villa Villa. That production travelled the world for a staggering 13 years before James started to feel the creative drain of such a massive commercial success. He finally left the company with composer Gaby Kerpel in 2001, and together they began a wildly ambitious project called Fuerzabruta. The idea was to create multi-sensory show based upon a series of sensations rather than a narrative. In particular James wanted to create a theatre-going experience that felt real (“Real as a dog,” to quote his programme notes precisely). “We don’t need to act,” explains Ozan, “The things that happen, the running, the smashing into walls, that’s real, and people can see the true emotion on our faces.”
Three and a half years after beginning work, the project was finally, lovingly unveiled in Buenos Aires in 2005. It was an immediate popular and critical success, going on to tour in London and Bogotá, Colombia, before beginning a 72-week European tour in Edinburgh.
However, Fuerzabruta very nearly didn’t make it to the capital. On it’s way over from Colombia much of the show’s equipment was set upon by Colombian drugs police, who mercilessly tore open the massive steel crates and damaged much of the expensive apparatus. Among other things, police slashed open the floor of the giant floating swimming pool, causing the company to delay their Fringe opening by two days. There was also supposed to be an extra black tent shipped over from Australia to widen the bar area, but this was destroyed by a massive storm on the way over.
It’s also fair to say the show hasn’t appealed to everyone in Edinburgh. In particular, some critics have pointed to the lack of narrative as a serious shortcoming, arguing that the show has no meaning, no heart, no soul.
Debora Torres, another performer, waves away this criticism with a nonchalant Argentine finger. “The press night is always the worst,” she says. “The show only works when the crowd are part of the show and journalists always just stand there looking miserable. They want a story, a meaning, but the whole point is that we’re not going to tell you what it means, it’s up to you. It’s about your imagination.”
Indeed one of the most interesting aspects of Fuerzabruta is the number of possible meanings available. I tell Martine that for me the intensity of the colours and the sensory onslaught feels almost psychedelic and drug-inspired. “But you see that is the beauty of the show,” he answers excitedly. “You saw drugs. Dicqui (the director) saw dreams and for me it’s like a strange human experiment.” “Yeh”, Torres interrupts. “For me it’s always felt like a human version of a video game. The point is you have to relax, open your mind.”
Inside the black tent pounding dance music has replaced chill-out and people are starting to stream in. Within minutes, the show has taken hold. Ozan, Torres and the other performers are transformed from laid-back South Americans into otherworldly acrobats, assaulting the senses with one incredible scene after another. Gazing at the spellbound crowd, heads tilted upwards, faces smiling or open-mouthed in wonderment; it’s difficult to be sceptical about Fuerzabruta. Bold, unique and audacious, it is a production and experience of truly epic proportions.