Gymnastics Showcase in ‘Aeros’

If you didn’t see the unusual showcase of choreographed gymnastics when “Aeros” played the Southland in January--and let’s be honest, most of us didn’t--you’ve got another opportunity, because Bravo is presenting a taped version today.

As a bonus, there is a documentary recounting how this collaboration between U.S. choreographers and the Romanian Gymnastic Federation came to be. The two-hour package of performance and background premieres here at 5 p.m. and repeats at 9 p.m.

Much the way that Cirque du Soleil presents circus performers in a stylized fashion, “Aeros” serves up world-class gymnasts in a theatrical setting. There are amazing displays of tumbling, vaulting, leaping, handstands and other acrobatic forms of sheer physical strength, but they come with costumes, music, lighting and choreography.

The latter--credited to Daniel Ezralow, David Parsons and Moses Pendleton (with Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas of “Stomp!” also on board)--sometimes takes the form of sketch-like segments and other times takes athletes known for individual excellence and uses them en masse as a super-corps. One sequence on a set of parallel bars, for example, syncopates the performers’ movements as if they were pistons in a giant machine.

The show’s U.S. tour didn’t persuade critics that this undertaking should qualify as dance, but producers said that wasn’t the intent. They were after entertainment and, on that score, the production succeeded smashingly.