Click here to read more Picture This Post Physical Theater Festival stories.
A chiffon-like, large piece of white fabric flies over us.
“We need your help. Raise your arms," an actor on stage calls out.
We help the fabric make its way to the stage, but before it does, it completely engulfs us. The blue lights make the fabric engulfing us resemble water and the movement of our arms creates the waves. This is how the entire show proceeds—little text, and most of it spoken directly to us in the audience in the small and intimate performance space.
We are here in La Bestia joining in the journey of central Americans migrating from their home countries, through Mexico, and into the south of the United States. The trials and tribulations of this difficult journey, as well as the moments of stillness and community, are shown not through words, but through impressive acts of acrobatics.
The journey starts with runs and flips. When they reach the river, the actors form a clump as they sway from side to side, embodying a boat. A large wave comes and the group loses a few members, who gracefully spin away.
LA BESTIA Presents a Fully Physical Way of Telling Stories
Silks, arial arts, the diabolo, handstand canes, and much more—the arduous nature of their journey is told through physical feats of every kind. We gasp during most of the acts.
An acrobat is pulled by a string connected to her hair, high up into the air as she spins and holds her foot to her head. She contorts her body into shapes and creates a series of visually striking poses and images.
Another actor-acrobat, as part of his journey, must jump through many hoops–literally. He flips through the hoops with dexterity as they get higher and higher still. The other acrobats cheer him on.
A live band is stationed above the stage accompanying all of the action. The sound of pianos, strings, and drums allow the musicians to create a wide range of sounds and moods. Despite that, it is near-silence when the actor-acrobats make their way to the border, only to pull down a black curtain and find a wall.
You too, like this writer, might feel that the La Bestia spectacle-packed show conveys the trials and tribulations of Central American immigrants in a moving and powerful way.
For those who enjoy physical story-telling and circus, this is for you.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Nominate this for The Picture This Post BEST OF 2023
Click Readers' Choice!
Check out the 2022 Winners!
CAST:
Nouveau Sud Circus Project.
CREATIVE TEAM:
Nouveau Sud Circus Project.
This year’s Physical Theater Festival and performances of La Bestia have concluded. Please bookmark the Physical Theater Festival website for more information on next year’s festival.
Photos Courtesy of Physical Theater Festival.
About the Author: Madalena Martins
Madalena is a young writer and actress based in Chicago. She was born and raised in Lisbon (Portugal- the home of soccer and custard tarts) then moved to Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and finally made it to the United States! Her international background resulted in a deep love for languages, cultures, travelling, and food. She is also a lover of theatre, cinema, music, and literature. In her free time, she enjoys writing, going to the beach, doing improv comedy and sketches with friends, talking to strangers, and suffocating her dog with love.
Besides this, she is interested in climate activism, feminism, and queer studies, and is interested in the intersections between these fields.
Nominated for Picture This Post BEST OF 2023
I especially liked how the background information flows smoothly into the description of a keystone scene.
This review does a great job of positioning the reader directly into their seat and the experience. Descriptions accentuate our view, we are not just viewing such an experience, but we are actively a part of it through the writing.
The descriptions made the story feel very vivid, especially the opening lines describing being engulfed by the fabric.
I was immediately engaged with the writer’s perspective because she opened the piece with a poignant image of the performance’s visual artistry. As all the supporting details that follow unfold, there is a strict focus on La Bestia’s grand acrobats: flips, handstands, aerial arts—the works. She also uses exposition, like background info on the story, but uses it expertly to lead us right into her POV.
The article then takes a deeper dive, as it develops more on the idea of just how jaw-dropingly incredible these stunts are. The writer accomplishes this by briefly articulating vivid depictions of two truly stunning scenes. Following this, she includes information on the music, or lack thereof at points, and how it supports the performance’s visually driven story telling.
Overall, I greatly enjoyed this article and the writer’s POV. It’s clear to me her focus was on conveying the powerful, visually driven storytelling this performance offers and the ways it is utilized to depict its subject: the migration journey of central Americans. This writer serves a concentrated taste of how the performance accomplishes this, cooking up a visually artistic experience for the reader.