I've always been a Valentine's Scrooge. During Valentine's season each year, I always stop myself from rolling my eyes and launching into a tirade about V-Day being the biggest piece of marketing B.S. built around a saint who is little known of and a bow-wielding, winged baby in diapers.

Just like the past 12 years, I spent the 14th of February this year not celebrating the occasion. No candlelit dinner dates. No red-foil wrapped gifts. No fancy, floral bouquets. Instead, I attended the premiere showing of Fuerza Bruta at the Manila Hotel Tent with my best gay friends and sister (for some reason, they all didn't have dates either). As far as I was concerned, it was just another weeknight out with friends. Only, instead of going to a club or a bar, we were all collectively watching an international show that was described as "unusual, interactive, and dazzling" by its local promoters.


Ask anyone who's seen Fuerza Bruta what it's about and they probably wouldn't know what to say. The show is, as promised, a theater staging of a different kind. For one, you're standing the whole time. There's no real stage and it only lasts an hour. The show starts out with a man with a cable attached to his back who walks and then runs on a raised makeshift threadmill. He gets shot, bleeds, falls, gets back up and then starts running again.

From there, it gets curiouser and curiouser: falling furniture, cable acrobatics across a wall, drum beats and frenetic dance moves, the cast randomly frolicking with members of the audience, styrofoam confetti raining everywhere. Then a clear plastic platform descends from the ceiling, hangs over the audience, is filled with ankle-deep water, and gives a vicarious aquarium-like view of the female cast members as they engage in unsynchronized dive-dancing.

It was at this point in the show, as I was watching the female cast members glide across the shallow water like supine penguins sliding down an icy slope, that I had the strangest epiphany. Maybe the observances for Valentine's Day were extra-influential this year but, ironically, I started counting down how Fuerza Bruta is, in many ways, a lot like love.

Fuerza Bruta is a surreal dream, an interactive fantasy, a celebration of sorts. There's no explaining it, except that it's fun and exhilarating, but also confusing and chaotic. It's a montage of explosive scenes alternating with cheerful merriment and quiet pauses. Sometimes you just have to look ahead, even if you don't know what you're looking at. Sometimes you need to look up and the spectacle is right there in front of your eyes. Or sometimes, it's the person next to you who will give you a thrill. Just like love.

You move around in circles. You stand still riveted. Sometimes you have to give space. You can try to run from it. You can dance along. Or you can just slink in the corner and wait until the revelry comes to you. Because, even if you try your hardest, you can never avoid what's happening. Just like love.

It's tiring to be in it, whether you're a spectator or a participant. It will mess with your mind. You will think, "Where is this all going?" and then want to walk out. But, somehow, you'll stay and wait, because then comes a moment that takes you by surprise and impels you to applaud and cheer with everything you've got. Moments that take your breath away, moments so silly they just make you smile and say, "Yes, it's actually worth it.” Just like love.

It will go by so fast. So fast that you'd need to remember to always be in the moment. To open your eyes, ears, mind, and heart. To dance and cheer and laugh along. To just dive in. Even lose yourself at some point. Because you'll come out of Fuerza Bruta with a new experience, wondering what you got yourself into or smiling from wonderment; either way--just like I did--with a completely different perspective.

Exactly like love.


Launch the gallery to see photos from the show. Tickets for Fuerza Bruta are available at www.hoopla.ph, the Manila Hotel concierge, or through 320-1111.

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