Fuerza Bruta: Wayra
Opening Night: July 8, 2014
Closing: August 28, 2016
Theater: Daryl Roth Theatre
Fuerza Bruta: Wayra is an event where worlds collide, where dreams are real and reality takes a back seat. The fast-paced show takes the audience on a thrill ride from beginning to end, with upbeat live music, on-stage musicians and aerial displays.
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July 9, 2014
You know that part, right before the show starts, when they tell you where the emergency exits are? Usually, it’s not the most ear-catching information. But should you find yourself in a crowded theater that’s so thickly clouded with pink-lit stage fog that no exit signs are visible, and they skip the part about where to find them, you might feel the tiniest bit alarmed. Fuerza Bruta: Wayra, at the Daryl Roth Theater, skips that part, or at least it did the other night. This latest bit of sensory-overload brand extension from Diqui James and Gaby Kerpel, of De la Guarda, is a shiny, ever-shifting kinetic spectacle bent on disorientation. A high-volume, augmented remix of Fuerzabruta, which ran at the Daryl Roth Theater for more than six years, this energetic 80-minute show is rife with acrobatics, throbbing music, many-colored lights and storm-speed wind machines. All of the intermittent live music and a few of the scenes are new, including “Globa,” a giant bubble inflated over the crowd for acrobatic purposes. “Vela,” a scene that was once in Fuerzabruta but was taken out years ago, is resurrected here: a shimmering, two-sided climbing wall maneuvered through the audience like a parade float, a man on one side, a woman on the other.
READ THE REVIEWJuly 9, 2014
It was good to be back in the Daryl Roth Theatre on Union Square East for Wayra, the new incarnation of the highly popular, long-running Fuerza Bruta that started performances in 2007. The latter show was a thrilling mix of acrobatics, antic performance, and dance party all with an existential twist, and all of those elements remain in the new version. Trouble is that for anyone who caught Fuerza Bruta, there might be too much that’s familiar about Wayra to warrant a return trip. Indeed, the first three segments of the show are almost entirely identical to what debuted in the same space seven years ago. After some expert drumming from a newly installed ensemble (music by Gaby Kerpel), a 6′ high treadmill gets wheeled into the center of the theater and on it there’s a man who’s walking and then, running. Soon, he’s contending with all kinds of obstacles. Chairs and tables—placed onto the treadmill’s belt by technicians —zip past him and he tries to establish some orderrush by him. Soon other performers are zipping along the treadmill, only to zip straight off. Ultimately, the man is crushing through walls made of white cardboard boxes even as a strong wind tries to hold him back.
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July 8, 2014
The giant swimming pool above our heads is still intact. The mid-air race around a room-enveloping Mylar curtain is, too. While Wayra, the latest iteration of Fuerza Bruta, the popular Argentinean theatrical experience at the Daryl Roth Theatre, is being billed as providing a “fresh experience” through “newly designed set and scenes,” nothing about it actually feels that way. And in the age of mind-blowing environmental-theater shows like Here Lies Love, Queen of the Night, and even Sleep No More, Wayra is more or less old hat, no matter how high the actors fly around the room. Yeah, the performers do fly, which is one thing Fuerza Bruta (Brute Force) can still lord over its now-multitudinous competitors. And unlike, say, Here Lies Love, this particular show has no story, which is perhaps one of the reasons why it’s been so popular among younger audiences for the past seven years. You stand around and dance, get pelted by water and hit over the head with Styrofoam blocks, and don’t have to worry about following a plot. You can lose touch with reality for an hour or so and get sucked into a world were humans can literally run sideways on flimsy walls made of what looks like aluminum foil. If you’ve never seen it before, it’s an inspiring sight, one that revives childhood memories of wishing that you could fly.
READ THE REVIEWJuly 8, 2014
The one thing in short supply while waiting for Wayra to begin at the Daryl Roth Theatre is any amount of the title element itself — wind. The third part in the Argentinian multi-sensory trilogy begins in a stifling, windowless, un-air-conditioned room near Union Square. Then it blows you away — again. Wayra is less a sequel to Fuerza Bruta — which played the same space from 2007 until earlier this year — as much as one that’s been tweaked, as if on mild steroids. Live drumming and singing has been added, for one. The man in white running on a treadmill is back. So is the high-energy dance breaks, the aerial dancing and the famous overhead Slip ‘N Slide with four nymphs. By now, they should all be as stale as the air, but somehow they’re not. It’s still arresting, still beautiful stuff.
READ THE REVIEWJuly 8, 2014
Prepare to be blasted by gale-force gusts in the high-energy Wayra — which is fitting, since the title of the show means wind. A powerful sense of déjà vu is also in the air if you’ve seen Fuerza Bruta (Brute Force), an earlier version of the show by the same creators of De La Guarda. This third new link in the trilogy is basically a rerun of the second production, but with a ticket price that’s about $30 higher than before. Sure, there are a few fresh elements in Wayra, including live drummers added to a thumping taped soundtrack. There’s also an extended sequence situated inside a huge inflatable dome. And this time it’s A-OK to record whatever you want on your smartphone, but sans flash.
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