This morning as I battled a particularly tricky cockroach in the bathroom (at time of writing, Cockroach 2, Molly 0), I realized that I have survived my first full month in Buenos Aires. It was not long ago I was groggy at the airport and dragging my luggage around a new city. How far I have come since then.
Last night, my study abroad program arranged a trip to Fuerza Bruta (Brute Force), a live-action show that has elements of Cirque du Soleil, Blue Man Group, a music festival, and a special effects smorgasbord. I looked up reviews online, but I still wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Fuerza Bruta began in Buenos Aires and has had various incarnations in major cities around the world. The show we attended was at the Centro Cultural Recoleta, a community space paid for by the city of Buenos Aires for exhibitions, shows, and other arts events. We walked into a large, dark space and waited for the show to start.
And it started with a bang. Basically, you stand in the center of this space, and the show happens around, above, and in the audience. There’s water, smoke, bits of paper, and audience participation. Now, I tried to take pictures, but with my simple camera, strobe lights, loud music, smoke, and a strict “no flash” policy, my photos all came out like a colorful Rorschach test. Instead, here is the official video of the show—just pretend like I’m standing in the middle and having a great time.
The show was really cool. The acrobats were amazing, and I spent the show being equally fascinated by the performance around me and also by how they were doing the stunts. For example, one scene involved lowering a large plastic water area above the audience and performers splashing in the water. The water kept moving around the performers, which both looked interesting and cast unique light patterns on the audience. I was trying to figure out how the water kept moving—I determined that they were moving the apparatus up and down at a slight angle to keep the water constantly moving.
The name Fuerza Bruta was clearly appropriate for the show. The performers, and audience, by extension, were subjected to various elements and forces. Like other Cirque du Soleil shows I’ve seen, everything in the performance has been beautiful but I’m never sure why it’s happening. For me, it was the perfect end to my first month in Buenos Aires because this was my first month in Buenos Aires. Events, places, people, and new experiences were all around me, and it was my job to make sense of it and have fun. In math, brute force means going through all the possible answers in order until you find the correct one. Moving to a new country and speaking a new language is itself an example brute force—you have to keep trying until you find your answer or learn how to do something. There are no shortcuts, no ways to find the answers that don’t involve a lot of work. You get creative and resourceful, you expect to fail, and, most importantly of all, you take in the beauty, whatever it may be, of what is happening around you.