In 1635 a Spanish writer, Calderon De La Barca wrote a comedy about free will and fate, and how free will creates nothing but whatever you decide, never sticking to rules, conventions of pre-set ideas. This year’s Fringe brings one of the most innovative, thought-provoking and engaging shows in recent years, Fuerzabruta, a show by the Argentinian group De La Guarda, and one that would very well embody the themes and ideas that De La Barca wrote four centuries ago.
De La Guarda define their act as a show that ‘doesn’t have a purpose’, that just ‘is’, and that’s very much the feeling that emanates when watching it. You are not meant to be looking for meanings or hidden messages, you are just meant to enjoy a unique piece of art. As Fuerzabruta is not just a play or a show, Fuerzabruta is art.
Based on a massive tent right besides the Ocean Terminal, Fuerzabruta pieces together different routines that are not interlinked, but where, each one of them, brings the audience into a new state of awe and stupefaction. Either by having some of the actors run through walls, dancing on the walls or swimming in a gigantic swimming pool that is dangled about the public’s heads, Fuerzabruta becomes pure joy and excitement.
Fuerzabruta trespasses the limits of the impossible and gives Calderon De La Barca’s famous phrase ‘For all life is a dream, and dreams are nothing but dreams’ a new definition. With Fuerzabruta all dreams are not nothing but dreams. For all life is a dream, and dreams are nothing but Fuerzabruta.
5/5
Adrian G. Velazquez
