Media Archive

The show strips away the dialogue and relies on dance to tell the story of Arrabal, and of Argentina. It also strips away the politics of military dictatorship to reveal the raw emotion of the people who lived through that dark time. In pairing the two, the show’s conceivers hope they have created something immersive, moving and connective.

Arrabal, making its United States premiere at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, is a gorgeous, sensual show that tells its complicated political story through the media of music and dance.

Directed and choreographed by Tony nominee and Laurence Olivier Award winner Sergio Trujillo, with live music composed by Oscar-winning Gustavo Santaolalla, the production is a nonstop explosion of visual and aural mastery.

Tango is not just a dance in director Sergio Trujillo’s “Arrabal.” It’s a life force. This purgative piece of dance theater reinvents the tango and is at once sexy, soul-shattering, and, ultimately, cathartic.

At the heart of “Arrabal,” of course, is the tango, which threads together the story loosely told through dramatic movement, going forward in time then flashing back to the horrible years of the dictatorship. The dancing is gorgeous, robust and erotic, nothing short of marvelous.

It is of course the dancing that matters most, and this is accomplished by a troupe that clearly knows what it is about. If this is the kind of experience you’ve enjoyed in previous dance pieces, you won’t be disappointed.

Like tango itself, the show intimately acquaints you with the most powerful emotions, from despair to sensuality. And it will make you want to undo buttons.

New American Repertory Theater show explores the legacy of Argentina’s brutal military regime through music and dance.

Arrabal, which the American Repertory Theater is bringing to the Loeb Drama Center for a five-week run, is a tango musical with a story to tell, and with a distinguished creative team.

John Lithgow can’t get enough of the Boston arts scene.

For over 40 years, John Weidman has been responsible for some of musical theater’s most complex and daring works. He has made a career out of writing the kind of theater that shatters expectations, revolutionizes structure, and stimulates the mind as much as the soul.

“Arrabal” is life, death, and sex in a whirl of arms and legs, heart and soul, pain and catharsis, dancers weaving in and out among the audience.