Fuerza Bruta’s new production, Aven, is literally spectacular. I’m not speaking figuratively here; it is spectacular in the most literal sense of the term. A series of elaborate spectacles, from a dance routine on a giant travelator to a whale the size of a small blimp, shock and delight the audience — with minimal narrative or characterisation to get in the way. The show is halfway between club night and circus, performed above, around and within the standing crowd. A sensory explosion, full of sound, light and adrenaline, Aven is an experience more than it is a piece of theatre.

The production relies heavily on its large-scale props, and the energy and enthusiasm of the performers who sell them. The cast are great drummers, great dancers, and great at pretending to run while suspended from various contraptions; but the point here is not their acrobatic skill. Really, they are there to project charisma, while interacting with the true stars of the show: the huge pieces of machinery that are wheeled through or dangled over the audience.

A few moments inspire real feeling. In one stand-out piece, a woman in a perspex pool of water hangs above us, thrashing and clawing at her own reflection: a man, clipped to the underside, mimics her movements and her raw emotion. The effect is a beautiful and thought-provoking inversion of reality. Other pieces carry rather less poetic heft, such as when a crane is dragged out to spin a performer in circles for a few minutes, and then dragged away again.

Set to an original score by Gaby Kerpel, and followed by a DJ set, Aven keeps enough feet moving to make papier mache of the confetti-and-water mix that coats the Roundhouse’s floor once the revels are done. No, there’s no deeper meaning here, but the whooping crowd doesn’t seem to mind. The show is joy for joy’s sake, spectacle for spectacle’s sake. To ask anything more of it would be missing the point.

Playing at the Roundhouse for eight weeks, 9 July – 1 September 2024.