International Smash Hit FUERZA BRUTA Sets House Record For
Longest-Running Theatrical Performance At The Adrienne Arsht Center

Special Limited Edition Fuerza Bruta Party Pack DISCOUNT
Offered in Celebration of a Successful Run

MIAMI, FL July 16, 2009 – With the addition of a second extension, FUERZA BRUTA has broken the house record for the longest-running show at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County. This will be the final extension as the show is scheduled to open in Mexico in September and must close in Miami on August 9.

To celebrate the success of the run, a special FUERZA BRUTA Party Pack promotion is being offered.  The package includes a $40 discount on four tickets plus four sets of special, Fuerza Bruta merchandise valued at $128. Details are available at www.fuerzabrutamiami.com.

“We are thrilled to extend our run and have Fuerza Bruta break the house record at the Adrienne Arsht Center,” said Michael Cohl Chairman of S2BN Entertainment, the Miami-based entertainment company that is producing the show. “There has been an incredible response.”

“The buzz surrounding Fuerza Bruta is infectious,” said M. John Richard, president and CEO of the Adrienne Arsht Center. “Miami has embraced this exhilarating production with tremendous fervor, making it one of the highest-grossing shows in the Center’s three-year history. Thanks to our partnership with S2BN Entertainment and Ozono Productions, more than 25,000 people will have enjoyed the thrill of Fuerza Bruta for the first time!.”

Before coming to Miami, FUERZA BRUTA’s touring company played major cities worldwide including New York, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, London, Cordoba, Bogota, Edinburgh, Berlin, Mexico, and Sao Paulo to high critical acclaim. Fuerza Bruta also has a company in New York that is currently performing their second blockbuster year.

Free from the confines of spoken language and conventional theater, FUERZA BRUTA has become the “go-to” theatrical experience for edgy non-stop entertainment.

SHOW TIMES & TICKET PRICES

Performances are Tuesdays through Sundays at 7:30 p.m.; and Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 and 10 p.m.  Single ticket prices are $63.75 and $73.75 including a $3.75 facility fee.

Tickets can be purchased through the Adrienne Arsht Center box office at 305.949.6722 or online at www.arshtcenter.org. Groups of 15 or more, please contact 786.468.2326.

For more information and video clips please visit www.fuerzabruta.net.

ABOUT FUERZA BRUTA

FUERZA BRUTA is an event where worlds collide and reality takes a back seat. This heart-pounding theatrical experience takes place completely on the Lynn Wolfson stage and begins the moment audiences walk in through the Center’s loading dock (dubbed the “Media Dock”) into the G-Lounge – a hip urban space, alive with heart-pounding club music directed by Miami’s best DJs, multimedia art installations created by local artists, and a signature Barton G. food and beverage experience.

At show time, audiences are ushered onto the main stage where they are engulfed in a 360 degree spectacle featuring mind-blowing visual effects just inches above the audience that must be seen to be believed – a man running full throttle on a giant treadmill, bursting through a series of moving walls; performers suspended in mid-air surrounded by a vast sea of mylar; and gorgeous women twisting ethereally in a lucite pool above the audience.  Argentinean creative genius Diqui James, one of the creators of the smash hit show De La Guarda, created original scenes and magnificent customized staging exclusively for the Miami engagement.

As the performance winds down, the visual and aural party continues in the G-Lounge. The pre- and post-party lounge is open to the general public.

FUERZA BRUTA premiered in Buenos Aires in 2005 and has been seen in Lisbon (2006), London (2006), Buenos Aires (2006), Bogota (2007) and at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2007), where it earned critical praise and was honored with the Bank of Scotland Herald Angel award for “the biggest and best show on the Fringe – the must see event of 2007” (The Herald). In October 2007, FUERZA BRUTA debuted at New York City’s Daryl Roth Theatre where De La Guarda had played a smashing six-year off-Broadway run. The New York engagement has attracted unprecedented national media attention and quickly extended its run due to overwhelming demand.

Celebrity followers of James’ De La Guarda included Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Timberlake, Madonna, Cameron Diaz, Sting, Britney Spears, Harrison Ford, Tyra Banks, Robert DeNiro, Catherine Zeta Jones, Sandra Bullock, Lucy Liu, Demi Moore and Drew Barrymore among others.

Celebrities who have visited the NYC or Miami production of Fuerza Bruta include, Lil Wayne, Jessica Alba, Fergie, Beyonce, Rachel McAdams, Jude Law, John Legend, Tyra Banks, Shakira, Alexis Bledel, Amber Tamblyn, Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams and Serena Williams.

FUERZA BRUTA was created by Diqui James (De La Guarda Co-founder/Co-creator); Gaby Kerpel (De La Guarda Composer/Musical Director); Alejandro Garcia (De La Guarda Technical Director) and Fabio Daquila (De La Guarda Production Supervisor).

For more information, photos, music, video clips, media reviews and more please visit www.fuerzabruta.net.

FUERZA BRUTA is presented in Miami by the Adrienne Arsht Center, S2BN Entertainment and Ozono Productions. The Miami production is sponsored in part by the Opera Suites and Marina. The Miami New Times is the official media sponsor of the Miami production.

Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County is made possible by the public support of the Miami-Dade County Mayor and the Board of County Commissioners, the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, and the Miami-Dade County Tourist Development Council. Education & Outreach is funded in part by The Children’s Trust. The Adrienne Arsht Center also receives generous support from private and corporate contributions to the Performing Arts Center Foundation of Greater Miami Inc. through its Visionary Society Membership Program and Major Gifts Program; City of Miami Omni Community Redevelopment Agency; American Express Company; Arison Arts Foundation; Dade Community Foundation; ExxonMobil Inter-America Inc.; Funding Arts Network; Southern Arts Federation; The MAP-Fund, a program of Creative Capital, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Arts Council; the National Endowment for the Arts; and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

###

Editor’s Note:

Related high-resolution photos and Beta footage are available by request.

About Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County

Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County is Miami-Dade County’s largest ever public/private-sector partnership, comprised of an $150 million private capital campaign conducted by the Performing Arts Center Foundation and public funding drawn primarily from the County’s Convention Development Tax revenues, as well as the City of Miami Omni Redevelopment District Community Redevelopment Agency. Greatly enhancing the artistic and educational opportunities in South Florida, the Adrienne Arsht Center will have significant and long-term economic benefits for the city and the region.

The Adrienne Arsht Center, designed by the world-renowned architect Cesar Pelli of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, includes the 2,400-seat Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House, the 2,200-seat Knight Concert Hall, a 200-seat black box Carnival Studio Theater, the Peacock Education Center, a restored Art Deco Tower, and the Parker and Vann Thomson Plaza for the Arts, which unites the Center buildings across Biscayne Boulevard, providing a magnificent setting for outdoor entertainment and informal gatherings. The key members of the design team include theater planning and design consultant Joshua Dachs of Fisher Dachs Associates, Inc. and acoustician Russell Johnson of ARTEC, Inc., both of whom worked of the project since its inception.

The Adrienne Arsht Center is a Miami venue not only for its four resident companies (Florida Grand Opera, Miami City Ballet, and New World Symphony), but also for many smaller South Florida arts organizations that will perform in its theaters on a regular basis, as well as for the finest popular and classical performances from around the world. With state-of-the-art performance facilities in Miami for the first time, the Adrienne Arsht Center offers South Florida audiences the best and most diverse theater, music, and dance – with a dedication to entertain, challenge and educate all segments of the community. For more information, visit www.arshtcenter.org.

About S2BN Entertainment

S2BN Entertainment is a diversified international family show and event entertainment company specializing in the acquisition, development and production of high caliber touring exhibitions, unique live music tours and events, theatrical performances, and consumer and multimedia product offerings. Our experienced management team executes activities across all types of global venues – from stadiums to theaters. S2BN Entertainment delivers solid profitability while providing extraordinary experiences for our clients and our customers.

About Ozono Producciones SRL

Ozono Producciones SRL is an Argentinean company devoted to the production & promotion of live shows and events, artists, TV and radio shows. Ozono’s members were pioneers in show business in Argentina. In recent years, Ozono has carried out the integral production of local shows, like Fuerza Bruta, which has already been staged in various cities around the world such as New York, London, Lisbon, Edinburgh, Berlin, Bogota, Sao Paulo and Mexico City. The success of our international concerts, festivals, musicals, plays and family events are the result of a professional and enthusiastic hard working team.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Zakarin Public Relations
Destiny Spang
destiny@zakarinpr.com
305.372.2502

S2BN Entertainment
Caren Bell
cbell@S2BNEnt.com
305.604.8071

Suzette Espinosa Fuentes
Sespinosa@arshtcenter.org
786.468.2221

Just mounting Fuerza Bruta in Miami is a significant challenge for the center’s production staff. To trim costs, most of the show’s machinery and set pieces are being built in Miami, so that only two cargo containers, instead of the usual seven, will be needed to ship the production from Argentina.

The elaborate production isn’t only on stage. It also will surround audiences from the entrance to the Barton G-designed Fuerza Lounge around the performance area. The idea is to extend the show’s atmosphere into a full night out. When Scott Shiller, the center’s executive vice president, saw De La Guarda, the predecessor to Fuerza Bruta, in New York, he was so excited he didn’t want to leave.

“When I thought about how to translate the show to Miami, I thought about capturing that spark,  . . . of extending the experience beyond the show,” Shiller says.

The loading-dock entry will feature art and installations created by students from Miami’s Design and Architecture Senior High School and artists from Wynwood’s Chelsea Galeria, and will incorporate urban and industrial elements such as cardboard boxes and graffiti. Video by Adam Reign and Osiris S. will mix images of water and performance.

For the Fuerza Lounge, Barton G. Weiss, whose Design District company produces elaborate parties for clients ranging from the Super Bowl to Ocean Drive magazine, has tried to reflect the show’s intensity and urban grit. “How do you pair the theatrics and technology of what they have to offer with what I have to offer?” Weiss asks.  “The show has this everlasting energy, and we want to continue the party.”

Show-goers will be able to eat, drink and dance to a DJ afterward. Seating is made from steel I-beams and cinderblocks, with a bar made from hurricane shutters. The menu is a kind of sci-fi take on carnival snacks. Drinks have names like Megavolt and Nitro Cosmo, and there are frozen “pop shots” – tequila-infused gel garnished with lemon and salt or vanilla vodka with strawberry puree on a stick.

Fuerza Bruta, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday; 7:30 and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday through July 5; Ziff Ballet Opera House (enter at loading dock on Northeast 14th St. between Biscayne Boulevard and Northeast Second Avenue.), Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami.

Tickets: $73.75. For more info call 305-949-6722 or visit www.arshtcenter.org.

All that wildness happens in Fuerza Bruta (Spanish for Brute Force), the Argentine spectacle that will transform the Ziff Opera House at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts into a theatrical funhouse beginning Tuesday, June 9.

For the show’s creators, action is all. They dispense with script, story, words and any conventional sense of meaning to create a theater of the senses, simultaneously high impact and high concept.

Fuerza Bruta will transform the opera house theater with an ambitious environmental production that uses the space in ways radically different from the shows usually staged there. The performance will share the stage and vast backstage area with members of the audience, who will surround the performers and even participate. Instead of coming in through the front doors and the lobby, they will enter through the loading dock, which will be filled with specially created art and video, then pass through an industrial-chic lounge and restaurant created by famed party designer Barton G intended to mirror Fuerza’s disorienting environment.

Arsht Center management hopes to make its production of the show into a uniquely Miami environment reflecting the area’s edgy, club-going energy and capacity for the unexpected.

The show has already sold half the tickets for its four-week run, and Shiller is hopeful that the center will be able to extend it for another four weeks.

Fuerza Bruta is an intensely collaborative effort. The scenes may start with images in the mind of Diqui James, the primary creator: the man running on a treadmill through a cardboard “wall” came to him while he was waiting in a bank and imagined breaking through the plate glass window and running down the street. The women who romp in water held by a giant plastic sheet suspended above the audience started with James’ wish to see a woman walking in an overhead pool of water.

But bringing those images to life is a painstaking and, in many ways, highly technical process. The show’s creators experiment with apparatus and materials and bring in architects and engineers. Fuerza Bruta took from 2002 to 2006 to complete.

James emphasizes that Fuerza’s images are meant to function on their own, whether the audience enjoys them purely for their physical and sensory impact or interprets them on another level.

“I don’t work with meanings; they don’t interest me,” James says. “I’m not saying that the representation of a man breaking with routine is a man running on a treadmill and breaking through a wall. It’s not a metaphor for me. For me it is what it is, and afterwards everyone has their own interpretation.”

Fuerza Bruta’s performers must combine physical skill and a particularly adventurous attitude that allow them to enjoy the show’s physical risks and the uncertainties of interaction with members of the audience, who are encouraged to touch, dance, and otherwise participate.

“To me, one of the strongest things that resulted from Fuerza Bruta’s kind of theater is that a ton of young people who have never gone to the theater went to Fuerza Bruta,” James said. “You have to have an open mind. If the fact that it doesn’t have a story is a problem for you, you’re not going to enjoy it. If you give more value to creativity, to the experience, then you will. Theater isn’t limited because there are no words.”

Fuerza Bruta, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday; 7:30 and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday through July 5; Ziff Ballet Opera House (enter at loading dock on Northeast 14th St. between Biscayne Boulevard and Northeast Second Avenue.), Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami.

Tickets: $73.75. For more info call 305-949-6722 or visit www.arshtcenter.org.

Miami has a new reason to dance the night away:  The G Lounge by Barton G is otherworldly, swirling with bright lights and pulsing music. However this downtown haven is only temporary.

The G Lounge, named after the ever-popular Barton G Restaurant that operates the space, was erected to complement the Adrienne Arsht production of Fuerza Bruta, a spine-tingling show in which performers cast a spell on audiences as they dash through walls and glide through water in a translucent pool suspended overhead.

While tickets to the show range between $63 and $74, the G Lounge is free and open to the public one hour before the show and stays open well into the night.

The warehouse-like structure is basked in glowing blue light, and large blue water jugs stacked on top of each other hang over the bar, contributing to the room’s funky deco. Steam spills from the lounge’s signature nitrogen-infused cocktails.

Defying the expectation that alcohol can’t be frozen, the lounge serves icy, below-zero drinks frozen by liquid nitrogen. The cosmos contain frozen vodka. There is coke and frozen rum, and the “rocks” served with whiskey are actually cubes of frozen whiskey. Even shots of Patron come on a stick—these frozen tequila pops are trimmed with fruit.

Corndogs and ice cream also come on a stick, making it easy to move around and mingle while munching. Tacos, burgers, BLT spring rolls, cookies, brownies, sushi and more are also served.

The lounge was built specifically to complement Fuerza Bruta’s multi-sensory experience and is located in the performance area’s large backstage room. Just as the show covers the audience in water, mist and fog, the lounge gets attendees just as involved.

After the show, the lounge illuminates in a rainbow of colors, and transforms into a club. A DJ blasts dance music as audience members imbibe on nitrogen concoctions.

G Lounge
Hours: Opens one hour before shows.
Cost: Free to the public
Ages: All ages:

Fuerza Bruta
Hours: Tuesdays and Sundays at 7:30 p.m. / Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Price: $63.75 and $73.75, including a $3.75 facility fee.
Money saver: A limited number of $20 rush tickets will also be available one hour prior to each performance.

End date: The lounge will be open until Fuerza Bruta ends on August 2.

Being in a dance club will never feel the same after you attend this show.

Every time you have had a few drinks, you will recall the plexiglass swimming pool descending so close you can touch it. The beautiful women dancing horizontally high in the air will come back to you after that third tequila. You’ll even feel the smashing styrofoam on peoples’ heads even though you’re just leaning against a post.

This is touch it, feel it theater the like of which you will rarely see. The runs ends August 2. Call now.

You can get $10 off your tickets to Fuerza Bruta on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. To get your discounted tickets, click here and enter promo code FUERZAFACE. You can also call to use the promo code, 305-949-6722

INTERNATIONAL SMASH HIT
FUERZA BRUTA
EXTENDS RUN DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND

Tickets on Sale to August 2, 2009

“THRILLING…A MENTALLY AND SENSUALLY INVIGORATING
EXPERIENCE!” – Miami Herald

“EXPLOSION OF A SHOW!” – CBS4

“OUT OF THIS WORLD!” - Univision

MIAMI, FL June 25, 2009 – In response to the overwhelming audience reaction to FUERZA BRUTA, the show will extend through August 2 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County.  Originally it was scheduled for a four-week run through July 5.

“Miami has embraced Fuerza Bruta with such enthusiasm that we’ve responded by extending our stay in this great city,” said Michael Cohl, Chairman of S2BN Entertainment, the Miami-based entertainment company that is producing the show.  “Fuerza Bruta has generated a huge buzz and has quickly become the hot ticket for the summer.”

“The buzz on Twitter and Facebook has Miami audiences going straight to the box office,” said M. John Richard, president and CEO of the Adrienne Arsht Center.  “We have never experienced a show that has generated so much online activity and enthusiasm. It is a privilege to partner with S2BN Entertainment and Ozono Productions in bringing this utterly unique show that has never been seen before in Miami.”

Before coming to Miami, Fuerza Bruta’s touring company played major cities worldwide including New York, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, London, Cordoba, Bogota, Edinburgh, Berlin, Mexico, and Sao Paulo to high critical acclaim. Fuerza Bruta also has a company in New York that is currently performing their second blockbuster year.

Free from the confines of spoken language and conventional theater, FUERZA BRUTA has become the “go-to” theatrical experience for edgy non-stop entertainment that completely dazzles and is totally sensational.

SHOW TIMES & TICKET PRICES

FUERZA BRUTA

Performances are Tuesdays through Sundays at 7:30 p.m.; and Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 and 10 p.m.  Single ticket prices are $63.75 and $73.75 including a $3.75 facility fee.

Tickets can be purchased through the Adrienne Arsht Center box office at 305.949.6722 or online at www.arshtcenter.org. Groups of 15 or more, please contact 786.468.2326.

For more information and video clips please visit www.fuerzabruta.net.

ABOUT FUERZA BRUTA

FUERZA BRUTA is an event where worlds collide and reality takes a back seat. This heart-pounding theatrical experience takes place completely on the Lynn Wolfson stage and begins the moment audiences walk in through the Center’s loading dock (dubbed the “Media Dock”) into the G-Lounge – a hip urban space, alive with heart-pounding club music directed by Miami’s best DJs, multimedia art installations created by local artists, and a signature Barton G. food and beverage experience.

At show time, audiences are ushered onto the main stage where they are engulfed in a 360 degree spectacle featuring mind-blowing visual effects just inches above the audience that must be seen to be believed – a man running full throttle on a giant treadmill, bursting through a series of moving walls; performers suspended in mid-air surrounded by a vast sea of mylar; and gorgeous women twisting ethereally in a lucite pool above the audience.  Argentinean creative genius Diqui James, one of the creators of the smash hit show De La Guarda, created original scenes and magnificent customized staging exclusively for the Miami engagement.

As the performance winds down, the visual and aural party continues in the G-Lounge. The pre- and post-party lounge is open to the general public.

FUERZA BRUTA premiered in Buenos Aires in 2005 and has been seen in Lisbon (2006), London (2006), Buenos Aires (2006), Bogota (2007) and at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2007), where it earned critical praise and was honored with the Bank of Scotland Herald Angel award for “the biggest and best show on the Fringe – the must see event of 2007” (The Herald). In October 2007, FUERZA BRUTA debuted at New York City’s Daryl Roth Theatre where De La Guarda had played a smashing six-year off-Broadway run. The New York engagement has attracted unprecedented national media attention and quickly extended its run due to overwhelming demand.

Celebrity followers of James’ De La Guarda included Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Timberlake, Madonna, Cameron Diaz, Sting, Britney Spears, Harrison Ford, Tyra Banks, Robert DeNiro, Catherine Zeta Jones, Sandra Bullock, Lucy Liu, Demi Moore and Drew Barrymore among others.

Celebrities who have visited the NYC or Miami production of Fuerza Bruta include, Lil Wayne, Jessica Alba, Fergie, Beyonce, Rachel McAdams, Jude Law, John Legend, Tyra Banks, Shakira, Alexis Bledel, Amber Tamblyn, Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams and Serena Williams.

FUERZA BRUTA was created by Diqui James (De La Guarda Co-founder/Co-creator); Gaby Kerpel (De La Guarda Composer/Musical Director); Alejandro Garcia (De La Guarda Technical Director) and Fabio Daquila (De La Guarda Production Supervisor).

For more information, photos, music, video clips, media reviews and more please visit www.fuerzabruta.net.

FUERZA BRUTA is presented in Miami by the Adrienne Arsht Center, S2BN Entertainment and Ozono Productions. The Miami production is sponsored in part by the Opera Suites and Marina. The Miami New Times is the official media sponsor of the Miami production.

Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County is made possible by the public support of the Miami-Dade County Mayor and the Board of County Commissioners, the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, and the Miami-Dade County Tourist Development Council. Education & Outreach is funded in part by The Children’s Trust. The Adrienne Arsht Center also receives generous support from private and corporate contributions to the Performing Arts Center Foundation of Greater Miami Inc. through its Visionary Society Membership Program and Major Gifts Program; City of Miami Omni Community Redevelopment Agency; American Express Company; Arison Arts Foundation; Dade Community Foundation; ExxonMobil Inter-America Inc.; Funding Arts Network; Southern Arts Federation; The MAP-Fund, a program of Creative Capital, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Arts Council; the National Endowment for the Arts; and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

###

Editor’s Note:

Related high-resolution photos and Beta footage are available by request.

About Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County

Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County is Miami-Dade County’s largest ever public/private-sector partnership, comprised of an $150 million private capital campaign conducted by the Performing Arts Center Foundation and public funding drawn primarily from the County’s Convention Development Tax revenues, as well as the City of Miami Omni Redevelopment District Community Redevelopment Agency. Greatly enhancing the artistic and educational opportunities in South Florida, the Adrienne Arsht Center will have significant and long-term economic benefits for the city and the region.

The Adrienne Arsht Center, designed by the world-renowned architect Cesar Pelli of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, includes the 2,400-seat Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House, the 2,200-seat Knight Concert Hall, a 200-seat black box Carnival Studio Theater, the Peacock Education Center, a restored Art Deco Tower, and the Parker and Vann Thomson Plaza for the Arts, which unites the Center buildings across Biscayne Boulevard, providing a magnificent setting for outdoor entertainment and informal gatherings. The key members of the design team include theater planning and design consultant Joshua Dachs of Fisher Dachs Associates, Inc. and acoustician Russell Johnson of ARTEC, Inc., both of whom worked of the project since its inception.

The Adrienne Arsht Center is a Miami venue not only for its four resident companies (Florida Grand Opera, Miami City Ballet, and New World Symphony), but also for many smaller South Florida arts organizations that will perform in its theaters on a regular basis, as well as for the finest popular and classical performances from around the world. With state-of-the-art performance facilities in Miami for the first time, the Adrienne Arsht Center offers South Florida audiences the best and most diverse theater, music, and dance – with a dedication to entertain, challenge and educate all segments of the community. For more information, visit www.arshtcenter.org.

About S2BN Entertainment

S2BN Entertainment is a diversified international family show and event entertainment company specializing in the acquisition, development and production of high caliber touring exhibitions, unique live music tours and events, theatrical performances, and consumer and multimedia product offerings. Our experienced management team executes activities across all types of global venues – from stadiums to theaters. S2BN Entertainment delivers solid profitability while providing extraordinary experiences for our clients and our customers.

About Ozono Producciones SRL

Ozono Producciones SRL is an Argentinean company devoted to the production & promotion of live shows and events, artists, TV and radio shows. Ozono’s members were pioneers in show business in Argentina. In recent years, Ozono has carried out the integral production of local shows, like Fuerza Bruta, which has already been staged in various cities around the world such as New York, London, Lisbon, Edinburgh, Berlin, Bogota, Sao Paulo and Mexico City. The success of our international concerts, festivals, musicals, plays and family events are the result of a professional and enthusiastic hard working team.

A few days ago, 400 of us stood in a huge dark room being pounded by the brute force of music, strobe lights, clouds, and confetti.

Screaming dancers ran across a pulsating wall, then young women began swimming above us, close enough to touch. They call their show, ”hypnotic, exotic, and aquatic.” It’s all that and more.

Go to ArshtCenter.com or call 305-949-6722 for details

CBS4

CBS4

New blocks of tickets that were previously held as production holds have now been released for all Fuerza Bruta performances at the Adrienne Arsht Center.  In addition, a limited number of $20 rush tickets will be available nightly beginning one hour prior to each performance.

“The show’s extraordinary energy and international popularity has already created a buzz throughout the community. People are experiencing the Center in a totally new way – from the entrance through the loading dock and unprecedented on stage access to the pre- and post-show action in Barton G.’s G-Lounge, said John Richard, President And CEO of the Center.

“This is a fabulous show – full-on energy that becomes a thrilling ride for the senses,” said Michael Cohl, chairman of S2BN Entertainment, the Miami-based entertainment company that is producing the show. “We have traveled this show around the world to rave reviews, so now we are so excited to bring it home, to our own backyard.”

Free from the confines of spoken language and conventional theater, Fuerza Bruta has become the “go-to” theatrical experience for edgy non-stop entertainment that completely dazzles and is totally spectacular. In hotspots around the world – Buenos Aires, New York, Lisbon, London, Cordoba, Bogota, Edinburgh, Berlin, Mexico and Sao Paulo — the show has been met with wildly enthusiastic approval and, in New York where it is now in its second year, it remains one of the hottest tickets in town.

Show Times & Ticket Prices
Performances are Tuesdays through Sundays at 7:30 p.m.; and Fridays and Saturdays at 10 p.m. Single ticket prices are $63.75 and $73.75 including a $3.75 facility fee.

Tickets can be purchased through the Adrienne Arsht Center box office at 305-949-6722 or online at www.arshtcenter.org. Groups of 15 or more, contact 786-468-2326.

For more info.: Visit www.fuerzabruta.net.

GINA H. says FUERZA BRUTA MOVED ME in a way that NOTHING in my life before has moved me (other than the birth of my children). Yes…it was up there, it comes close to the birth of my children in the measure of emotion it evoked in me.  I thought to myself “THIS IS ART!”. Read more…

Denise F. says If you’ve ever felt moved by witnessing a work of art, you know that there is no limit to the impact that art can have on your emotions, your psyche, and the way that you think about your life. Fuerza Bruta is not only a work of art, it’s a movement. Read more…

jen r. says…everyone was dancing, jumping, smiling, laughing, overall in awe! the show goes on above you, across from you, in front of you, next to you, and mainly inside of you.  i was floating on cloud 9, then fearful, then curious, then excited, then anxious. didnt know what to think and feel next and before i knew it i was overwhelmed with so much i wanted to be a part of it! Read more…

Jocelyn T. says It’s a show, art, dance, and it has a club-like atmosphere, where the actors and the audience are like one and the same. Read more…

Melissa R. says This show was incredible! The Barton G lounge had great drinks and appetizers. The set up is like a club atmosphere but better. I highly recommend this show for anyone that loves music and dancing. Read more…

Apparently Mr. Lollipop hid out in his limo while a female companion bought four tickets, then ducked in right at curtain time (when everything is dark) and ducked out just before the show ended.

Although it seems like it’d be hard to miss a braid-bedecked, heavily tattooed, multimillion Youtube video-hitting rapper standing right next to you in the crushed-together, standing-only-audience mode of Fuerza, apparently the darkness — and maybe the fact you wouldn’t expect to see a major pop star squashed up against you — kept Wayne incognito.

Fuerza Bruta

We’ve set aside 20 “rush tickets” for each show, on sale for just $20 each! For a chance to purchase these specially priced tickets, you must enter the “rush ticket lottery” starting 60 minutes before each show. At a half-hour before show time, the names of the 10 people eligible to purchase “rush tickets” for that performance will be drawn at random.

“Rush tickets” are available in person only at the box office and must be purchased with cash.

What to do during that 60 minutes before the show? You could have nitrogen cocktails at the Barton G-designed G lounge.

Fuerza Bruta

Performances of Fuerza Bruta, which runs through July 5, are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, with 10 p.m. late shows on Friday and Saturday.  Experiencing the production is different in myriad ways: You enter through the Opera House loading docks, chill out before and after with music, drinks and food in the G-Lounge, then get taken onto the stage where you stand, gawk, move around and occasionally brush up against the action for an hour.

Regular tickets are priced at $63.75 and $73.75.  The Arsht is located at 1300 Biscayne Blvd., but you enter through the loading docks on NE 14th St.  For info, call 305-949-6722, or visit the Arsht Center or Fuerza Bruta web sites.

As you might have guessed, Fuerza Bruta is not your run of the mill show.

Breakthrough: a man crashes through a wall in Fuerza Bruta, the show which will take over the Arsht Center for for a month beginning June 9.

Fuerza Bruta is a theatrical experience, a show that defies description. There are dancers, men running through walls and women cavorting in an aquatic wonderland suspended above the audience’s heads.

“The audience will experience an emotional trip through an extrodinary world with different rules,” says Diqui James, who created Fuerza Bruta. “It’s a celebration. A caotic exploration, brutally happy. A new experience that will ruffle your hair off. From inside.”

The international hit has wowed audiences in New York, London, Argentina, Colombia and Brazil. And now it’s coming to Miami the headliner of the Arsht Center summer season.

Arsht has done very well with these kinds of shows. Last summer, Miami Libre, which turned the Knight Concert Hall into a Latin club, played packed houses. And Slava’s Snow Show, in which Russian clowns performed wordless scenes and made it snow inside the Ballet and Opera House, was a huge success. (The New York production of Slava garnered a Tony nomination for Best Theatrical Experience.)

“More than 130,000 people enjoyed a performance at the center last summer” said M. John Richard, president of the Adrienne Arsht Center. “With the presentation of Fuerza Bruta, the Adrienne Arsht Center brings to Miami a show that will rock South Florida—a cutting-edge performance that has been a hit all over the world.”

Fuerza Bruta is in a class by itself. The action takes place over the audience’s heads. Not figuratively, but literally. You’ll have to look up to see the action.

The show takes place completely on the stage and begins the moment audiences walk in through the loading dock (dubbed the Media Dock) into the Fuerza Bruta lounge—a hip urban space alive with heart-pounding club music directed by Miami’s best DJs, multimedia art installations created by local artists, and a signature Barton G. restaurant inspired by the show.

After entering the theatre through the loading dock, the audience will be ushered onto the main stage where they will be engulfed in a 360 degree visual feast, featuring mind-blowing visual effects just inches above the audience—a man running full throttle on a giant treadmill, bursting through a series of moving walls; performers suspended in mid-air surrounded by a vast sea of mylar; and gorgeous women twisting ethereally in a lucite pool above the audience.

The audience gets up close and personal with mylar at Fuerza Bruta.

“The audience is part of the show. They form a part of it. Like people in the street when something extraordinary happens like an accident or a celebration,” says James. “You can participate or just stand and look, but you are part of it, whether you like it or not, because your attitude is part of what’s going on. There is no boundaries between the show and the audience. There is no stage, no seats. You can be very close to the action, dance or just be standing close to the door.”

As the performance winds down, the visual and aural party continues in the Fuerza Bruta lounge. The pre- and post-party lounge is open to the general public.

“The audience experience will be unlike any other presentation at the Adrienne Arsht Center,” says M. John Richard, president and CEO of the Adrienne Arsht Center. “From the unique entrance through the loading dock and onstage experience to the interactive pre- and after-party components, Fuerza Bruta will be the talk of the town this summer.”

Concebido por Diqui James, director artístico y Gaby Kerpel, encargado éste último de crear la música, que resulta acelerada y acogedora, acorde al ritmo que demanda el show, el espectáculo tuvo su estreno en Buenos Aires, Argentina, en el 2005. Desde entonces, Fuerza bruta ha cosechado éxitos en Argentina, Colombia y Brasil, así como en ciudades como Londres, Lisboa, Nueva York y ahora en Miami, donde también está dejando su huella.

El espectáculo se mueve entre lo circense y lo teatral, pero sin llegar a ser ni lo uno, ni lo otro, pues le falta la poesía que derrocha el Cirque du Soleil y la narración coherente que logra La Fura dels Baus, por ejemplo. Aún así Fuerza bruta resulta inquietante y sobrecogedora desde el primer momento. Un equipo de asistentes desplaza al público aglomerado en el salón, de un lugar al otro, para abrir paso y dejar entrar y salir una enorme estera donde un hombre batalla contra las fuerzas y desafía su propia resistencia. Pero ése acto es apenas el inicio de una función en la que María Laura Mesigos, Martín Buzzo, Juan Martín Fernández, Deborah Torres y Nazarena Mon, se entregan con enérgica pasión, afrontando los retos que demanda el programa.

A medida que trnscurren los minutos, va creciendo la espectacularidad. De repente, unas cortinas sirven de “sostén” para caminar sobre ellas, arrancando la exclamación del público que queda fascinado, ante los malabares que dos actrices desarrollan. Fuerza bruta es precisamente …

eso, un derroche de tenacidad, de firmeza. En algunos momentos logra una gran plasticidad, como en una coreografía, donde varias nadadoras combinan sus movimientos, con el desplazamiento del agua y los efectos de luz, sobre la enorme piscina aérea, que desciende hasta el nivel del público.

Otra escena de desbordada violencia, aunada con una música creciente, y agua en forma de lluvia sobre el auditórium, tienen que ver con derrumbes, romper paredes, derribar lo que se viene encima. Y esa es, si es que deseamos buscarle un sentido a lo que vemos, lo que podría resumir Fuerza bruta: la lucha del hombre contra los obstáculos. Sin duda alguna se trata de un espectáculo vertiginoso e inolvidable. Fuerza bruta

Lynn Wolfson Stage

del Ziff Ballet Opera House

Adrianne Arsht Center

1300 Biscayne Blvd, Downtown Miami

Hasta el 5 de julio

Tel. 305-949-6722

www.arshtcenter.org

Fuerza Bruta

Fuerza Bruta, officially opening June 11 and playing through July 5, brings a blend sensuality, acrobats, heart-pounding music and dream-like sequences to the Lynn Wolfson Stage at the Ziff Ballet Opera House.

This is not conventional theater and that’s what makes it intriguing. I enjoyed the participatory element of Slava’s Snowshow presented at the Arsht Center last year and Fuerza Bruta brings audience participation to a new level. Using the palm of their hands, viewers can touch the female performers though a clear and shallow pool.

Fuerza Bruta brings “the world’s best acrobats and performers and the best DJs in the World,” said Scott Shiller, Adrienne Arsht Center Executive Vice President. Speaking above the new G lounge, Shiller provided background on the show. “This is the largest production of Fuerza Bruta in North America. The staff has been working almost 24 hours a day.”

We were given a performance preview featuring “the running man” in full throttle; beautiful women cavorting sensually in a Lucite pool just above the audience heads; and the dynamic music that is an essential part of the show.

You can come early or stay late at the G-Lounge by Barton G. I tried many of creative snacks. Any party food that you imagine, the G Lounge has managed to put it on a stick. I tried the corn dog on a stick, taco on a stick, hamburger on a stick, all of which were delicious and surprisingly reasonably-priced. The drinks on a stick where also a fun and original treat. Tonight I will be heading off to the Fuerza Bruta Opening Night show.

The shift starts as you enter the Ziff Opera House through the loading dock on 14th Street into what is normally backstage, and a lofty, black-curtained club created by party impresario Barton G. The industrial design and flickering video might be radical for the Arsht Center opera house, but it’s standard for the nightclub world. So is the black, high-ceilinged space you move into for the performance itself, which was packed with a crowd full of 20-somethings eager to scream, dance and jump along. ”This doesn’t feel like the arts center,” said one veteran performance-goer, looking around.

The sensory assault and 36-degree staging of Fuerza Bruta has its roots in ’60s experimental dance and ’80s performance. But the level of invention, visual beauty, and energy make Fuerza a mentally and sensually invigorating experience.

The disorientation hits with Fuerza Bruta’s opening blackout, which leaves you standing, sightless, not knowing what comes next or from where, so that lights shining through blowing clouds of dry ice seem like a major event. When the ”Running Man” (Martin Buzzo) emerges on his treadmill, he seems to float through the audience (the crowd was initially slow to adapt to the constant shifts required to accommodate the big moving set pieces, leading to an early claustrophobic crush at one side of the room).

Buzzo walks, then runs, seeming to barely stay on his feet, smashes through a moving door and cardboard walls, is felled twice by a gunshot, and joined by other performers who jostle past him to topple off the end of the treadmill. It’s as if Buzzo is thrusting determinedly, sometimes desperately, through the rough life rushing past him. The bed he briefly rests on is pulled away from him, and at one point he frantically tries to hold onto tumbling tables and chairs so he can sit.

Most of the rest of the dreamlike show has a gentler or giddier feel, often playing with images of water. Two women, suspended on cables, slowly leap and somersault high across a giant silvery curtain, then intensify to running and hurling themselves, as if blown by a gale across a wall of water. A manic figure sprays the crowd with a cloud of water. A huge sheet of silvery plastic billows overhead, then descends on the audience like an ocean dropping down — people responded by dancing, batting the plastic, lighting up the darkness underneath with their celLphones.

The eight riveting performers work to get the audience to participate, to scream, dance to composer Gaby Kerpel’s pounding music, drop their inhibitions. They rush through the crowd, bashing thrilled individuals with confetti-filled pizza boxes, pulling them up on scaffolding for a flailing dance.

When an enormous plastic pool of water appears overhead, the four women writhing and sliding inside seem like strange water creatures; with the light shining overhead.

It’s as if they’re walking on water and we’re deep below looking up.

When the light blacks out, the audience sees their own faces reflected down at them; it’s as if our point of view has been flipped so we see ourselves as the water sirens looking down see us.

As the pool descends, the women laughing and pressing and kissing the plastic, the audience pressing back — as if reaching for another world that they can see and almost, but not quite, touch.

Fuerza ends with an exhilarating shock: Buzzo, with two other performers, hurtling down off a high platform and through a wall to run wildly, suspended in the air. It’s thrilling — as if he’s leapt off his harsh treadmill and burst through to some other, much freer place.

Created by Artistic Director Diqui James, along with collaborators Alejandro Garcia and Fabio Daquila, the production eschews traditional themed storytelling, and instead presents a montage of visceral vignettes left open for interpretation by a diverse crowd.

Straying from tradition, audience members enter the theatre from the building’s loading dock, which leads directly into a converted lounge area hosted by Miami’s popular Barton G.

Drinks and snacks are sold while music pumps from the industrialized setting, replete with heavy black draped walls and cool blue overhead lighting.

At show time, a curtain rises, and audience members are ushered into the performance space where they each stand shoulder to shoulder in one big, vast, compact rectangle. Metal scaffolding towers occupy two of the corners.

A pulsing musical beat by the fourth creative member of the “Fuerza Bruta” team, Gaby Kerpel, begins to pump loudly from all sides, and a man walking on a treadmill enters on a large moveable platform that sets the stranger’s pace just above eye level. From a distance, he is walking through a sea of gazing human heads.

The treadmill speeds up and suddenly “Walking Man” (Martin Buzzo) becomes “Running Man” as he encounters a slew of problematic obstacles.

He bumps into pedestrians, trips over outdoor café tables and chairs, and bursts through concrete walls in his frenetic attempt to keep going despite all else.

“Walking Man” could represent any man, and the trials and tribulations he faces while forging through daily life, or it could represent nothing at all. James presents visual concepts, but insists that viewers interpret on their own.

Two women, suspended from the ceiling on cables, run and tumble perpendicular to a waving Mylar tarp. Five dancers brutally tear apart a living space built of paper walls and ceiling, while bashing confetti filled boxes over each other’s heads in the process. Some audience members are invited to join in.

Four other women spend time swimming, sliding, and forming synchronized formations in a Lucite pool suspended above the audience.

Each scene is unique and remains mutually exclusive from the next.

In rave fashion, water is squirted from above onto some audience members as the show comes to a close.

Most take to it, as the music intensifies and an overhead voice offers an invitation to continue partying in the neighboring Barton G lounge, once again revealed by the rising entry curtain.

The kinetic energy of the show appeals to those familiar with the Miami club scene. Others are left to interpret what they’ve just experienced on their own.

When you go out, you go all out.

So it’s nice to know that there’s a party that shares your enthusiasm… it’s called G Lounge at Fuerza Bruta.

Allow us to explain: We first met Argentina’s Fuerza Bruta, a trippy Cirque du Soleil/Latin rave performance hybrid, as it took New York, London, and countless other cities by storm last year. Finally, it’s Miami’s turn to join the “erotic, hypnotic, aquatic” party—and now it’s better than ever.

Conceived by Miami’s incomparable Barton G, the new, temporary G Lounge is the official pre- and post-party for the show. The cinderblock and chrome fan-lined warehouse space’s vibe more than matches the futuristic intensity of the performance’s flying dancers and experimental beats.

And to help you unwind: sip this dystopic dancehall’s innovative techno-fare, including “Mega Watt” Frozen Bananas and funky liquid nitrogen shots (served at -320° F).

But hurry, Fuerza Bruta and its G Lounge experience ends after Independence Day.

Learn more about Fuerza Bruta and the G Lounge here. The party runs through July 5th. And trust us, this isn’t one to miss.

G Lounge at Fuerza Bruta
Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd
Tel: (305) 949-6722
arshtcenter.org

Big bay doors open to a series of cavernous rooms where you eventually find Fuerza lurking in the dark like an occult secret improbably let slip amid the the city’s club scene. Clubbers are the people you find in cavernous room number two, AKA the G Lounge — a dim and foggy place that feels a little like an H. R. Geiger spaceship. Stacks of mean-looking industrial fans tower against one wall; vast heaps of metallic equipment with no obvious function stand against the others.

Liquor bars along two of the walls sell “liquid nitrogen cocktails” for ten dollars, along with five-dollar burgers and a whole mess of sexed-up stadium food. This is not your average theater lobby, and it is not your average theater crowd. The night I went, I found two young ladies doing lines in a bathroom five minutes before showtime.

Weirdly solipsistic videos play on high-def plasma screens, showing ostentatiously hip, young things striking poses as though starring in one of Warhol’s screen tests. I wondered, Where is the show? Because in the G Lounge, there were no obvious entrances to a theater. There was just the industrial décor, the black-draped walls, and a bunch of beautiful women with perma-frowns getting juiced on their muscular boyfriends’ tabs. Also: What are these people doing here? Can this crowd handle a serious theatrical experience? They were young, drunk, rowdy, and — if the constant parade of elbows and shoulders trying to separate me from my date was any indication — rude.

But that’s OK. These questions — Where am I? and Can these people be trusted? — are Fuerza’s apparent subject matter, and they recurred periodically throughout the night. Shortly after 10 p.m., a black wall split open and we herded ourselves into a seemingly infinite performance space. The room’s edges were obscured by darkness and fog, and its center was occupied solely by blades of purple light. An unseen MC asked us to respect the artists’ intentions and to move about the space as the performance demanded. This was necessary, for Fuerza uses no fixed stage, and the action continually pops up all around you.

Fuerza’s central image is that of a man in a suit, walking or running on a treadmill and blasting through whatever objects appear in his way. At the show’s beginning, you cannot know where he will materialize. Last Saturday, he seemed to rise magically from the crowd; when obstacles appeared in his way, it was as though they’d been teleported. After crashing through walls and doors, the walking man was shot. He fell down. He ripped off his shirt and resumed walking. Soon he fell into a bed, but the treadmill — which we couldn’t see — decided to make off with his possessions while he slumbered. He awoke, grabbed at his tables and chairs, and tried to keep them from disappearing into the distance. Inevitably, he failed. People sped by him before falling like rag dolls out of view. Sometimes he seemed to like these people. Other times he was indifferent. On occasion he was hostile, and so were they.

The treadmill and its inhabitants eventually disappeared. To where I can’t say — Fuerza’s technical goings-on are obscured by the fact that the show is performed atop provisional, slightly raised platforms in a flat, stageless space filled with standing spectators. All below-the-knee action is invisible. I never saw a performer’s ankles until he or she began to fly.

Fuerza is really a series of set pieces with only tenuous thematic connections. The second of those involves two women running, ninja-like, across a shimmering vertical tarp some 25 feet above the audience. Cables then whisk a similar tarp overhead. Though no actors are visible at that moment, it is the most meaningful thing to happen all night.

Fuerza Bruta is the brainchild of visionaries Diqui James and Alejandro Garcia, formerly of De La Guarda, and their intentions, as explained on their website, are so pure and innocent it’s difficult to believe they ever got funding. Consider: They mean to create “a space… the spectator gives itself to, knowing that he is part of an artistic event that is inside a parallel reality, ethereal, beautiful, delirious, and absolutely more truthful than the day-to-day.” Lovely words, and certainly the kind of thing most regular theatergoers could get behind. But these were not regular theatergoers, and you cannot expect every random person who stumbles out of a cocaine-dusted bathroom to immediately comprehend such concepts.

When the tarp swooped down and began dancing over the crowd like a gargantuan, benign ghost, many people reached up to touch it. Some grabbed it. A few pulled it, hard. Suddenly, part of the tarp became disconnected from the harness that hoisted it.

The man who had given the almighty yank that did the damage looked momentarily pissed with himself, as if he had learned something painful and important. Though Fuerza prides itself on inscrutability (”No one knows the meaning of the work, because it doesn’t have one,” say the creators), the night I went, it seemed to exist solely to create these confrontations. The artists, popping in and out of the audience, tried to disorient us, surprise us, shock us; the audience, unaccustomed to shock and surprise, wished to ritually establish its ordinary control over its surroundings — perhaps by fucking up the show.

Later, when a pool of water descended from the ceiling, filled with beautiful, undine-like maidens, the crowd tried to poke and prod them. The nymphs seemed used to it. They danced and slid and splashed, pressed their faces to the pool’s clear plastic bottom and smiled at their would-be molesters.

Fuerza Bruta should be both more concise and longer — its set pieces are all over-long, and there should be more of them. But before the scenes wear out their long welcomes, they summon a tension seldom felt in South Florida theater: a beautiful savagery created by the performers in collusion with the spectators, but orchestrated by neither. It is unstable and weird, and even a second of the audience’s unwillingness to play along could cause the whole enterprise to go south. South or not, it promises to go somewhere, and that’s really something. So long as the creators of Fuerza draw their mojo from the diffuse hostility of the mob, their show will never fail.

Rather than try to sort through all the photos to pick the best, I am just going to throw most of them up. Taking time from when I should be posting upcoming events or working on Life Is Art. But, I cannot stress to you enough how incredible Fuerza Bruta really is.

A place where wine glasses never break, you can practice your chip shot with an umbrella and smoothies and teriyaki live together in harmony.

It’s all adequate preparation for what we’re poised to bring you today: the G Lounge at Fuerza Bruta, a nightclub so astonishingly futuristic, it can only be open temporarily.

Orchestrated by the city’s master envelope-pusher, Barton G, the Lounge is what you’d find if Willy Wonka and Mad Max opened a club together and decided to make liquid nitrogen the main cocktail ingredient. Sort of like a post-apocalyptic watering hole, the cavernous space is all graffiti-ed up and outfitted in cinder-block seating, with a bar slapped together from hurricane shutters. And instead of martini shakers behind the bar, you’re treated to stainless steel drums and plastic tubing, which lead to glass cases of smoky, sci-fi concoctions like frozen tequila shots and chocolate bananas on a stick (BYO hammer).

Naturally, it would be impossible to sustain this level of nightlife weirdness full-time, so the lounge is only open before and after performances of Fuerza Bruta, a trippy experimental dance mind-bender. After the show, you’ll want to extend the dreamy visual mélange with dystopian-punk drinks like the Megavolt and the Nitro Cosmo.

So much better than the Nitrotini.

The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County celebrated the opening night of its new show, Fuerza Bruta, last night with more than 700 people. The center worked with event producer Barton G. Weiss of Barton G., the venue’s exclusive caterer, to create the G Lounge pop-up nightclub in conjunction with the show, making it the largest production of Fuerza Bruta in North America.

“Fuerza Bruta has toured around the world, in New York, Brazil, Mexico, London, and we really wanted to do something unique and make it a Miami experience,” said the center’s executive vice president, Scott Shiller. “All of the energy and the aerobatics that are happening on stage are extended into the lounge, where [after the show] audiences are geared up and ready to party.”

Weiss designed the lounge—located by the theater’s loading dock—with an industrial atmosphere created by street barricades, orange-and-white traffic barrels, fire hydrants, and steel highboys throughout the black space.

On opening night, two bars served specialty cocktails for purchase, including three nitrogen-infused drinks created specifically for the lounge. “It’s a sensory integration, so what we’ve done is taken what you’ve seen visually [in the show] and put it into smell and taste,” said Weiss, who also designed the food—such as the California roll sushi pop and American Pie corn dog—to be easy to eat while standing.

The lounge opened at 6:30 p.m., an hour before the show, with light music and food and drinks for sale. Following the 45-minute performance—which takes place behind a black curtain separating it from the lounge—fog machines, strobe lights, and upbeat dance and techno music transformed the formerly low-key lounge into a rave-like nightclub where some 500 guests stayed until 10:30 p.m.

The G Lounge is open to the public nightly after performances and will remain at the Arsht center for the show’s four-week run.

—D. Channing Muller

Según John Richard, presidente y CEO del Adrienne Arsht Center, Fuerza Bruta estreceme al público por ser un espectáculo de vanguardia. A partir del 9 de junio, el escenario Lynn Wolfson se transforma en un verdadero mundo de bailarines que vuelan, latidos vibrantes de la música, sueños que no parecen concretarse por parte de sus protagonistas quienes luchan en un mundo feroz, y la mejor atracción,la piscina multidimensional encima de las cabezas de los asistentes.

Los actores no sólo tienen condiciones físicas envidiables, sino que también prueban sus capacidades actorales. Fuerza Bruta fue creada por Diqui James, co fundador y co creador de De La Guarda; Gaby Kerpel (compositor y director musical); Alejandro García, director técnico y fabio Maquila, supervisor de producción.

El espectáculo es completamente interactivo y comienza desde que el público entra por el muelle de carga al salón donde ocurre toda la acción de Fuerza Bruta. El look es urbano, vanguardista, atrevido y, sobre todo, una gran fiesta antes y después de la presentación.

La mayor diversión visual ocurre en la piscina colgante donde las cuatro actrices llegan al climax de dramatismo de la obra.

“El público está expuesto a experiencias nunca antes vistas en el Adrienne Arsht Center. Desde la original entrada por el muelle de carga y las experiencias en el escenario a los elementos interactivos en la fiesta antes y despúes del show. Fuerza Bruta se convertirá en la sensación de este verano”, afirma John Richard.

It’s been nearly a week since we’ve seen Fuerza Bruta, the unique show now at the Arsht Center, and we’ve heard some interesting reactions. One friend said he was “gobsmacked” by what he saw; another said gleefully declared the show “a slap in the face.” Yet several rather hip friends said that they didn’t get it, that maybe they were just too old for Fuerza Bruta. Opinions are diverse, but just about everyone we heard from said they were glad they had the experience of watching women play water nymphs in a transparent pool above the audience’s heads, or watch performers do their frenzied scaffold dances. And then of course there’s the Running Man, dressed in white, running to or from…something…but what? Whether or not Fuerza Bruta leaves you feeling old or “gobsmacked”, one thing’s for sure—you’ll have a lot to talk about, and think about.

The surreal interactive music and dance show, Fuerza Bruta, will thrill South Florida audiences with its cutting edge performance starting this weekend. Having already wowed audiences in New York, London, Argentina, Colombia and Brazil, the show takes the stage at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on June 11th for a limited 4-week engagement.

“Fuerza Bruta”, which is Spanish for “Brute Force”, is described as a non-stop collision of dynamic music, jaw-dropping acrobatics, visceral emotion, and kinetic aerial imagery that resembles a fantastic mash-up between aerial theater and a late night-dance party. Creator Diqui James told CB4’s Lisa Petrillo about his vision of the show.

“It’s very theatrical and it’s very primitive,” said James. “Primitive in a high tech setting. It’s a big party.”

The stage will be transformed into an alternate universe and feature a running man in full throttle on a giant treadmill, bursting through a series of moving walls as if the world were rushing past him; performers suspended in mid-air surrounded by a vast sea of mylar; and gorgeous women twisting ethereally in a multidimensional lucite pool above the heads of the audience. Audiences stand for the 55 minute performance.

“It’s a stage show, where you don’t sit,” explained James. “You can be where you want to be. If you want to be close to the stage you can or if you want to walk around you can. You have freedom to enjoy the show.”

Since the show is under an hour, event planner Barton G. has created the G Bar; exclusive to Fuerza Bruta. It’s a backstage nightclub where guests can come before and after the show and indulge in daring drinks like nitrogen infused cocktails and light bites.

Show times & ticket prices performances are Tuesdays through Sundays at 7:30 p.m.; and Fridays and Saturdays at 10 p.m. Single ticket prices are $63.75 and $73.75 including a $3.75 facility fee.

Tickets can be purchased by calling the Adrienne Arsht Center box office at (305) 949-6722 or online at www.arshtcenter.org.

The Adrienne Arsht Center is located at 1300 Biscayne Blvd., in Miami.

The Lynn Wolfson Stage inside of the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House has been transformed into an alternate universe with flying dancers, pumping beats, engaging dream sequences and a multidimensional swimming pool above the heads of the audience.

Breaking free from the confines of spoken language and theatrical convention, FUERZA BRUTA is an event where worlds collide and reality takes a back seat. This heart-pounding theatrical experience takes place completely on the Lynn Wolfson stage and begins the moment audiences walk in through the Center’s loading dock (dubbed the “Media Dock”) into the FUERZA BRUTA lounge – a hip urban space alive with heart-pounding club music directed by Miami’s best DJs, multimedia art installations created by local artists, and a signature Barton G. restaurant inspired by the show.

At show time, audiences are ushered onto the main stage where they are engulfed in a 360 degree spectacle featuring mind-blowing visual effects just inches above the audience that must be seen to be believed – a man running full throttle on a giant treadmill, bursting through a series of moving walls; performers suspended in mid-air surrounded by a vast sea of mylar; and gorgeous women twisting ethereally in a lucite pool above the audience. Argentinean creative genius Diqui James, one of the creators of the smash hit show De La Guarda, created the original scenes and magnificent customized staging exclusively for the Miami engagement.

As the performance winds down, the visual and aural party continues in the Fuerza Bruta lounge. The pre- and post-party lounge is open to the general public.

All that wildness happens in Fuerza Bruta (Spanish for “Brute Force”), the Argentine spectacle that will transform the Ziff Opera House at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts into a theatrical funhouse.

For the show’s creators, action is everything. They dispense with script, story, words and any conventional sense of meaning to create a theater of the senses, simultaneously high impact and high concept. “For me, the word `idea’ doesn’t mean much,” Diqui James, the primary creator of Fuerza Bruta, says from Buenos Aires. “Idea represents something mental. For me, things come more from the body. First, I have an image, a physical impulse that I want to generate–action in the space, in the whole theater.”

Fuerza Bruta will transform the opera house theater with an ambitious environmental production that uses the space in ways radically different from the shows usually staged there. The performance will share the stage and vast backstage area with the audience, whose members will surround the performers and even participate. Instead of coming in through the front doors and the lobby, they will enter through the loading dock, which will be filled with specially created art and video, then pass through an industrial-chic lounge and restaurant created by famed party designer Barton G intended to mirror Fuerza’s disorienting environment.

Arsht Center management hopes to make its production of the show (which has already played in Argentina, New York, Edinburgh, London, Brazil, and Moscow) into a uniquely Miami experience, reflecting the area’s edgy, club-going energy and capacity for the unexpected.

”I thought this market, unlike any other city in America, had the ability to make [Fuerza Bruta] their own,” says Scott Shiller, the Arsht Center’s executive vice president.

Instead of staging the show in the sort of raw space in which it usually takes place, such as a tent or warehouse (in New York Fuerza is performed in a former bank), Shiller wanted to “do it in a theater in an unconventional, theatrical way — turn the theater on its ear.”

The show has already sold half the tickets for its four-week run, and Shiller is hopeful that the center will be able to extend it for another four weeks.

EXPERIMENTAL THEATER

Fuerza’s creators have been turning theater on its ear since James, who dropped out of acting school after six months, started the experimental La Organización Negra in 1987, a few years after the 1983 fall of the military junta in Argentina launched an artistic boom. LON was inspired more by rock concerts and street festivals than by traditional theater (the troupe famously once scaled a giant monument in Buenos Aires) and created shows with a dark, subversive edge.

In 1993 James and other LON members left to form De La Guarda, creating wild environmental spectacles that drew thousands in Buenos Aires and toured internationally, a run of several years in New York. In 2002, James split from De La Guarda co-founder Pichon Baldinu to launch Fuerza Bruta, bringing composer Gaby Kerpel, production manager Fabio D’Aquila and other De La Guarda members with him.

Fuerza Bruta is an intensely collaborative effort. The scenes may start with images in James’ mind. The man running on a treadmill through a cardboard ”wall” came to him while he was waiting in a bank and imagined breaking through the plate glass window and running down the street. The women who romp in water held by a giant plastic sheet suspended above the audience started with James’ wish to see a woman walking in an overhead pool of water.

But bringing those images to life is a painstaking and, in many ways, highly technical process. The show’s creators experiment with apparatus and materials and bring in architects and engineers. Fuerza Bruta took from four years to complete.

Not everything works.

”There’s a ton of things that seemed great, but I couldn’t do them,” James says. “It really hurts.”

But technology is not the point, says D’Aquila, who started as a musician in La Organización Negra and now oversees Fuerza Bruta’s complex production, from casting the performers to building the set and machinery. ”Our technique is to use technology to allow us to develop very human images,” D’Aquila says from Buenos Aires. “When the scene starts, you forget about the technical part. The pool is a very intense section because of all the technology. When it starts, people think it’s going to fall on their heads. But then you forget about the machinery and get involved.”

As the scenes develop, they can surprise even the creators, whether because they’re more striking in action than in concept or because they take on unexpected significance. ”The man who runs has a lot of meaning for us,” D’Aquila says. “He runs through life, but he doesn’t choose it; he doesn’t decide his life. A wall comes at him, and he breaks it. A bar comes, and a machine breaks it, and he has to run again.”

James emphasizes that Fuerza’s images are meant to function on their own, whether the audience enjoys them purely for their physical and sensory impact or interprets them on another level.

”I don’t work with meanings; they don’t interest me,” James says. “I’m not saying that the representation of a man breaking with routine is a man running on a treadmill and breaking through a wall. It’s not a metaphor for me. For me it is what it is, and afterwards everyone has their own interpretation.”

Fuerza Bruta’s performers must combine physical skill and a particularly adventurous attitude that allow them to enjoy the show’s physical risks and the uncertainties of interaction with members of the audience, who are encouraged to touch, dance, and otherwise participate. Maria Laura Mesigos, who started with De La Guarda in 2001, says she loves Fuerza’s visceral energy, the sense of fantasy made into slightly dangerous reality. She particularly enjoys hurling herself into water on a plastic sheet high above a crowd (her favorite section, during which she was spun in circles plastered to a giant sail, was unfortunately cut).

IN SCIENCE FICTION

”It’s so much fun, and we have such a good time. We’re really laughing,” Mesigos says. “You’re not afraid. You feel like a mermaid, like an aquatic being. It’s like being in science fiction.

“Everything that happens is real. . . . It hits the performer as much as the spectator with a maximum of sensation.”

Fuerza Bruta has been criticized for focusing on sensation over meaning, for discarding thought for high-impact action. The New York Times called it “theater for people who don’t really like theater. Patrons are not required to think, feel or even sit down for this hourlong sensory bath.”

And audiences for De La Guarda and Fuerza have often been younger people who don’t usually attend traditional shows.

The Arsht Center hopes to tap into that broader base with Fuerza, amping up the appeal with the loading dock multimedia installations and the lounge, so that going to Fuerza will be less like attending a Broadway musical and more like hitting the Wynwood Gallery Walk and then the club scene.

But James rejects the notion that Fuerza’s appeal to young audiences or people who prefer physical experience to literary meaning diminishes his show’s value.

”To me, one of the strongest things that resulted from Fuerza Bruta’s kind of theater is that a ton of young people who have never gone to the theater went to Fuerza Bruta or De La Guarda,” he says. “You have to have an open mind. If the fact that it doesn’t have a story is a problem for you, you’re not going to enjoy it. If you give more value to creativity, to the experience, then you will. Theater isn’t limited because there are no words.”

• IF YOU GO

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday; 7:30 and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday through July 5.
Where: Ziff Ballet Opera House (enter at loading dock on Northeast 14th Street between Biscayne Boulevard and Northeast Second Avenue), Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami
Cost: $73.75
Info: 305-949-6722; www.arshtcenter.org

“A dazzling blend of erotic, hypnotic, aquatic! Undeniably spectacular!”
-New York Post

Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County announced the Miami premiere of the international hit FUERZA BRUTA, a non-stop collision of dynamic music, jaw-dropping acrobatics, visceral emotion, and kinetic aerial imagery that resembles nothing less than a fantastic mash-up between aerial theater and a late-night dance party.

Beginning June 9, the Lynn Wolfson Stage inside of the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House will be transformed into an alternate universe with flying dancers, pumping beats, engaging dream sequences and a multidimensional swimming pool above the heads of the audience.

FUERZA BRUTA opens officially on June 11, with preview performances June 9 and 10, and will be on stage for a limited 4-week engagement.

“More than 130,000 people enjoyed a performance at the Center last summer. With the presentation of Fuerza Bruta beginning in June, the Adrienne Arsht Center brings to Miami a show that will rock South Florida – a cutting-edge performance that has been a hit all over the world,” said M. John Richard, president and CEO of the Adrienne Arsht Center.

Breaking free from the confines of spoken language and theatrical convention, FUERZA BRUTA is an event where worlds collide and reality takes a back seat.

This heart-pounding theatrical experience takes place completely on the Lynn Wolfson stage and begins the moment audiences walk in through the Center’s loading dock (dubbed the “Media Dock”) into the FUERZA BRUTA lounge – a hip urban space alive with heart-pounding club music directed by Miami’s best DJs, multimedia art installations created by local artists, and a signature Barton G. restaurant inspired by the show.

At show time, audiences are ushered onto the main stage where they are engulfed in a 360 degree spectacle featuring mind-blowing visual effects just inches above the audience that must be seen to be believed – a man running full throttle on a giant treadmill, bursting through a series of moving walls; performers suspended in mid-air surrounded by a vast sea of mylar; and gorgeous women twisting ethereally in a lucite pool above the audience.  Argentinean creative genius Diqui James, one of the creators of the smash hit show De La Guarda, created the original scenes and magnificent customized staging exclusively for the Miami engagement.

As the performance winds down, the visual and aural party continues in the Fuerza Bruta lounge. The pre- and post-party lounge is open to the general public.

“The audience experience will be unlike any other presentation at the Adrienne Arsht Center. From the unique entrance through the loading dock and onstage experience to the interactive pre- and after-party components, Fuerza Bruta will be the talk of the town this summer,” continued Richard.

FUERZA BRUTA has a company in New York that is currently performing their second blockbuster year, as well as a touring company that has played major cities worldwide including New York, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, London, Cordoba, Bogota, Edinburgh, Berlin, Mexico, and Sao Paulo to high critical acclaim.

FUERZA BRUTA premiered in Buenos Aires in 2005 and has been seen in Lisbon (2006), London (2006), Buenos Aires (2006), Bogota (2007) and at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2007), where it earned critical praise and was honored with the Bank of Scotland Herald Angel award for “the biggest and best show on the Fringe – the must see event of 2007″ (The Herald). In October 2007, FUERZA BRUTA debuted at New York City’s Daryl Roth Theatre where De La Guarda had played a smashing six-year off-Broadway run. The New York engagement is attracting national media attention and quickly extended its run due to overwhelming demand.

FUERZA BRUTA was created by Diqui James (De La Guarda Co-founder/Co-creator); Gaby Kerpel (De La Guarda Composer/Musical Director); Alejandro Garcia (De La Guarda Technical Director) and Fabio Daquila (De La Guarda Production Supervisor).

FUERZA BRUTA is presented in Miami by the Adrienne Arsht Center, S2BN Entertainment and Ozono Productions.

Tickets can be purchased through the Adrienne Arsht Center box office at 305.949.6722 or online at www.arshtcenter.org. Groups of 15 or more, please contact 786.468.2326.

For more information and video clips please visit www.fuerzabruta.net.

The deal is available only in person at the center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, April 4. It’s good for selected performances of three summer shows: Fuerza Bruta (June 9, 10, 11 and 14), Celia: The Life and Music of Celia Cruz (June 2,3,4) and Summer Shorts (May 28, 29 and 31).

While you’re there buying tickets, drop by Family Fest, a free monthly event for the whole family, from 11:30 am. to 1:30 p.m. This week’s activities include Didgeridoo Down Under, Matthew Sabatella and the Rambling String Band sing-a-long, Spanglish Wrangler, Steve Gryb the Pied Piper of Percussion and Rhythm City Dj Skool. Plus, kids can try out orchestra instruments and make their own musical crafts.