Deep in “Fuerza Bruta,” the interactive global entertainment experience that’s been described as part show, part dance party and part sensualist rave, a transparent Mylar pool descends from the ceiling and a water show explodes over your head.
Created by mostly the same Argentinian crew that brought “De La Guarda” to pretty much every major arts city in the world except Chicago, “Fuerza Bruta” is a further attempt to remind us that theater does not need anybody to be seated or still. And that no rule book requires performers to do their thing in front of your face, when they can envelop you and graze the top of your skull instead.
The international cast of “Fuerza Bruta” which opens Tuesday night in Chicago for a run that’s hoped to last all summer, has already been seen in such young, hot, restless towns as Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Miami. And this show has been playing in New York since 2007.
But whereas the Manhattan “Bruta” is unleashed inside a plain, black downtown box, the Chicago incarnation will have a very different setting: The stage of the glittering Auditorium Theatre.
That might not be a usage architects Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan anticipated for their gilded, 3,800-seat jewel box, but, hey, it’s summer in the city. Who wants to sit down when you can dance and sweat instead?
cjones5@tribune.com
‘Fuerza Bruta: Look Up’
When: Opens Friday in an extended run
Where: Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University, 50 E. Congress Pkwy.
Tickets: $50-$80 at 800-982-2787 and broadwayinchicago.com. (Check out the video at broadwayinchicago.com/fuerza.)
