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[title]Gerardo Hochman is an actor, acrobat, director, and founder of La Arena, a circus school that has been active for 30 years and has become a creative powerhouse of shows with its own distinctive quality and style, applauded in Argentina and around the world.
Fulanos will have only three performances this winter vacation 2025 at Ciudad Cultural Konex, and before the curtain rises, Hochman spoke with us about childhood, creative processes, the philosophy of his work, and the joy of telling stories without words.
What story does Fulanos tell?
It tells the story of six characters without names, ages, eras, social classes, or professions, who experience things that could happen to anyone: they dream, hope, question themselves, search, get bored, distrust, fall in love, feel shame, doubt, fear, run away, return, and wish to travel. Their world is made of stairs that constantly transform into beds to dream on, doors to pass through, slides to slide down, swings to swing on, mountain ranges to climb, elevators to rise, seas to soak in, mazes to find themselves, and boats to sail.
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How do you conceive a show for children with no words?
The words in this piece are replaced by skills, movements, and gestures. It’s an entire choreographic language where music and action blend so that each scene conveys a different situation and a unique human emotion. Both adults and children are carried away by the audiovisual impact of each moment, designed to let imagination take flight.
"The words in this piece are replaced by skills, movements, and gestures"
How do you approach creating a new show?
I always start by identifying an imaginary universe to create and a space to inhabit. These are the two main ingredients from which I build the full recipe. When I identify that imaginary universe—which in this case includes characters with deep human vulnerability, using stairs as the only major object, and a Beckettian poetics—I begin writing and describing situations that could happen in that environment. At the same time, I keep in mind the rich possibilities circus language and acrobatics offer to generate emotion, wonder, and surprise. I select those elements based on the overall concept of the piece and then choose the artists best suited to bring them to life on stage.
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What attracts you most about working for the youngest audiences?
Over time, I believe we (myself and the different groups of artists I work with) have become specialists in shows for “adults with kids.” In other words, our works attract multiple generations who enjoy them together. To satisfy everyone, we must be very attentive to the rhythm, surprise, and playfulness that children require to capture their attention from the audience seats. Taking an educational stance, I am always committed to offering the best possible artistic treatment, without concessions to what is usually called children’s theater. We strive for quality aesthetics, visual art, music, choreography, and storytelling, and the acrobatic display is executed with great mastery.
"Our works attract multiple generations who enjoy them together"
What is La Arena’s work philosophy?
We try to practice and transmit the idea of collaborative and associative group work without hierarchies. We see the bodies working together on stage as instruments of infinite possibilities and combinations in intrinsic interdependence. We are interested in circular, soft, fluid, light, agile, continuous, musical, bold, and risky movement. We try to create moving images, situations, behaviors, and relationships that can only exist in the performing arts world and that provoke hope and inspire the desire to be better—without breaking.
Do you think there is a new concept of circus?
Circus, in our environment, is a true cultural movement with a vast number of practitioners and a wide variety of applications. Within this diversity, there are many ways to conceive and practice it. We aim to practice it as a performing language, where each skill serves an expressive discourse. We align ourselves with a current of work that conceives shows based on a unifying concept, requiring an aesthetic and dramaturgical development that combines circus feats with poetic meanings.
What kind of artists do you like to work with?
Those who are willing to collaborate in whatever it takes to make the shows run smoothly. Those who rigorously prepare before performances. Those who dedicate time to review parts of the show that can be improved. Those who bring ideas more interesting than mine. The generous ones.
How was the Fulanos tour?
Wonderful: 13 shows in Salvador de Bahia and one in Aracaju, Sergipe state, Brazil. All sold out. The producer MDART welcomed us superbly and provided all necessary elements of the show. The group got along great on and off stage, and we had a wonderful time because Bahia is vibrant and the theater faced the beach, so it was showtime and a quick swim after. A boy of about 11 years old said to us after a show, “O melhor teatro da minha vida” (The best theater of my life). Mission accomplished!
What sets the Argentine audience apart from others?
The Hong Kong audience laughed a lot at parts unexpected for us, stayed attentive the entire show, and applauded very orderly at the end. The New York audience, as it was in the Latino neighborhood, was very participative. In Peru, since it was a circus tent with popcorn and sweets in hand, they stomped their approval from the stands at the end. In Mexico, they were surprised. In Ecuador, there were standing ovations; everyone jumped like a spring. In Argentina, the audience is very knowledgeable, proud of their own culture, with sensitive readings and intellectual interpretations on one side, and on the other, shared diverse emotions after the show.
What memories do you have from your own childhood?
Riding my bike around the blocks, the noise of the metal store shutter when the foosball ball hit it full force while we played on the sidewalk, collecting stickers, playing mirror games, hide-and-seek and tag, buying packs of snacks with the money my mom gave me for my snack, dice or pebble games, friends from La Paternal neighborhood: the big head, flat face, Polito, the Russian… The fear of the older kids’ “barrita,” secretly sneaking into the construction site and putting a hose in the sand pile to guess where the water would shoot out, making volcanoes on the beach, Sandrita the neighbor, playing soccer in the hallway with my friend Kano assigning us Argentina and Brazil players while narrating the game ourselves as we dribbled. Inventing a secret code so others wouldn’t understand us, “a girl’s goal counts double,” being last in the class representative elections, the Moscow Circus making me dream.
PING PONG
A neighborhood for walking: La Lucila in the north zone.
A café to sit and watch people pass by: Montecarlo at Paraguay and Ravignani.
Your favorite restaurant: Enfrente at Aristóbulo del Valle 1896 in Florida, north zone.
A childhood food: leftover ravioli, pan-fried.
A play: I’m Also Called Hokusai by Iván Hochman.
A recommendation for tourists: Get lost.
A book by an Argentine writer: Why Are You Leaving? by Iván Hochman.
What Porteño word defines you? Return.
A song: Tinta y Tiempo by Jorge Drexler.
What do you miss about Buenos Aires when on tour? My closet clothes, classes, routine, staying still.
When and where: July 19, 20, and 24 at Ciudad Cultural Konex, Sarmiento 3131. Tickets here.