Choreographer Patricia van Deutekom lets women in Furia celebrate their anger, instead of ignoring it ★★★★☆

They rap in heels on wooden decking next to the worn-out ballet floor. They whip their hair, clench their fists, tap each other’s legs, jump on each other’s shoulders. It is a ferociously controlled stamping feet that the four energetic dancers show in the performance furia (Spanish for anger) from the new collective Lava|Burning Bridges. They sniff across the stage like a pack of wolves. “There’s nothing wrong with anger. It is a pure and raw emotion that has to be released’, dancer Anna Mikuła announces the furious outbreak in her opening monologue, which waves over the stage with a dash of flamenco for over an hour.

Later, when the untamed frenzy turns into animalistic flight in response to too much pent-up pain, she crushes an imaginary peanut to smithereens with her boots. Involuntarily your thoughts turn to ‘music industry power jerks’ that you would have liked to see pulverized like this.

Choreographer Patricia van Deutekom explains furia power in women. They celebrate their anger, rather than ignore it, encouraged and sometimes tempered by singer and guitarist Monica Coronado. With songs in Spanish and English she also taps into the loving source of anger. Getting angry also means feeling concerned.

Some collisions, especially towards the end, still look rehearsed. These dancers don’t have to and don’t have to act. The feminine antidote is palpable enough in fierce jumps to the side and a vicious twist with the hips. Van Deutekom has joined forces with furia handsomely recovered after the sudden death of her life partner, choreographer Jens van Daele, in June 2020. They were each other’s muses. That shared past vibrates in the explosive energy, but unmistakably takes on a softer sound in the personal voice of a lady who won’t let anyone put her down.