STREB ANNOUNCES VIRTUAL HOME SEASON PERFORMANCE
ACTION HEROES: HOME SEASON @ HOME
The STREB Extreme Action Company brings its signature choreographed feats of physicality, scientifically planned chaos, strength, risk, and elegance to Zoom with
ACTION HEROES: HOME SEASON @ HOME, June 26, 2020, 7 pm
Often called the Evel Knievel of dance, founding Artistic Director Elizabeth Streb and her STREB Extreme Action Company have been thrilling and terrifying audiences around the world for over forty years. Following an international tour and a sold-out home season last fall, STREB was set to announce its Spring Home Season on March 12, but instead that day closed their doors to support the effort to contain the spread of COVID-19. Since then, STREB has offered an array of Remote programming, from a full semester of children’s classes to free daily adult classes, teen and tween Action Clubs, and even a Virtual Edition of the organization’s signature fundraising event, the Action Maverick Awards, via Zoom. Now, the company invites audiences into the virtual space again for ACTION HEROES: HOME SEASON @ HOME on Friday, June 26, 7 pm.
ACTION HEROES: HOME SEASON @ HOME will feature a mix of classic repertory footage, contextualized by Elizabeth Streb; some rarely seen pieces that, for one reason or another, have been difficult to re-mount; and two new pieces choreographed by Streb this spring specifically for Zoom - HORIZON LINE, which premiered on May 11 at STREB’s Action Maverick Award Benefit, and BODY GRAMMAR, which the company is currently rehearsing. ACTION HEROES: HOME SEASON @ HOME will offer audience members the unique opportunity to peer into Streb’s process, see the arc and evolution of the company’s body of work, and witness how an extreme action artist is approaching the new “stage” of Zoom.
“After making HORIZON LINE, which was created for our Action Mavericks Award Gala, and dealt with the idea of how the Zoom space separates the 9 bodies trapped within their boxes - while also attempting to defy that fact,” says Elizabeth Streb. “Now with BODY GRAMMAR, I am asking if there is content inherent in the body parts of a human being. These questions are an inquiry into what is left to work with when we, STREB Extreme Action Engineers, are left with only the visual. Is it the potent content of human images, and how infinite these can be when viewed in a particular way? Many similar questions remain here in this platform called Zoom. I am taking the description literally - we are ‘zooming’ in on the particulars of a human being - the hand, the back of the head, the leg, the arm, the elbow. When the body is ‘folded’ the way our joints allow, what images tell what story of the essence of the Human Being? About the shapes it makes, as well as what angle it chooses to be viewed from. Can we discover any content at all when the body is reduced to the mere essentials of the what and wherefore of the joints of our bodies? Are our Joints Actions verbs? Can we make it seem as if we are crossing ‘county lines’ when for instance one dancer slams into the edge of her neighbors rectangle and pushes that person explosively across their domain?”
ACTION HEROES: HOME SEASON @ HOME
Friday, June 26, 7:00 pm
Tickets are offered on a sliding scale from $0-$50 and are available at https://streb.org/homeseason/
$50 tickets will come with admission to a post-show Q&A with Elizabeth and the Company
Contact Shannon Reynolds: shannon@streb.org for questions about tickets.
About STREB Extreme Action Company
For forty years, STREB has performed in theaters large and small, served as artists-in-residence at the world’s top art museums, and taken its work into the streets and sports stadiums. The company’s extensive international touring calendar has included presentations at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Théâtre du Châtelet, the Musée D’Orsay, Greece’s Summer Nostos Festival, Théâtre de la Ville, Lincoln Center Festival, the Park Avenue Armory, the Fall for Dance Festival, Wolf Trap Foundation, the Walker Art Center, Los Angeles MOCA, the Wexner Center, Spoleto USA, the River-to-River Festival, the Brisbane and Melbourne Festivals and in Chile, Singapore and Taiwan. The company has received commissions to perform publicly at the 2012 London Olympic Festival, the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the Whitney Museum of American Arts groundbreaking, the Pan Am Games Arts Festival in Toronto, and the 2004 Cirque du Soleil 20th anniversary celebration performed in front of 250,000 people on the streets of Montreal. The company has also taken their signature extreme action to iconic locations including Grand Central Station, Coney Island’s fairground, the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, Madison Square Garden, the mall outside the Smithsonian Institution and more.
In January 2003, STREB moved into a vacant former loading facility and transformed 51 North 1st Street into the STREB LAB FOR ACTION MECHANICS (SLAM). In 2007, STREB purchased SLAM with unprecedented support for building acquisition from the New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs, City Council, Mayor’s Office and Brooklyn Borough President’s Office ensuring its future as the home of STREB EXTREME ACTION, the STREB PopAction School and the España-STREB Trapeze Academy. As a performance and presenting venue and an open access education and rehearsal space, SLAM creates community through interaction and experimentation.