“Streb's unique movement art—kin to sport, circus, physics experiment, and hard labor—has reached a peak of theatricality and dare — all virtuosity.” Village Voice

Date and Time:
Sunday, September 19, 2004 at 7:30 p.m.

Single Ticket Prices:
$10, 15, 22, 34, 45 (discounts available for seniors, youth, and groups)

Season Ticket Packages:
This concert is part of the Artist Series and Music in Motion Series season ticket packages.

Location:
Macky Auditorium

Running Time:
1.5 to 2 hours

Preconcert Conversation:
David Capps, Professor of Dance at 6:45 p.m. in Macky Room 102

Event Overview:
Equal parts quantum physicist, strength coach, and air traffic controller, choreographer Elizabeth Streb has created her own form of movement combining athletics, extreme sports, and Hollywood stunt work. Flying, bouncing and crashing off surfaces like giant atomic particles in a super-collider, her dancers redefine the limits of physical motion. Her new work, ‘Wild Blue Yonder’, celebrates the 100th anniversary of flight with a daring and dynamic homage to those that first embraced the dream that humans can fly.

Program:
ELIZABETH STREB - Wild Blue Yonder

Artist Bio:
For more than 20 years, Elizabeth Streb has asked questions that challenge many widely accepted assumptions about dance. Her investigation of movement through the study of science and the human body has led her to make formal choices which vary from traditional norms. Aesthetics of grace, the use or camouflage of gravity, the presence or absence of transitions, treatment of gender, the nature of spatial and temporal dimensions as well as the use of sound in theatrical presentations have been primary areas of exploration. Streb’s approach is to take it apart and see how it works -- to isolate the basic principles of time, space and human movement potential. The outcome is a distinct way of moving, an idiosyncratic vocabulary, and a visceral performance experience: They dance. You sweat.

STREB has become a platform for this investigation, a collective attempt to uncover movement’s true nature by harnessing it without debilitating it. Streb and her dancers see the rehearsal as a laboratory for testing scientific principles on the human body. The company has engineered a system that allows the body to execute the choreography -- through the development of specific muscles and the unusual placement of the body parts, the dancers are able to explore time, space, air, and aim -- all through the use of felt-timing. Streb’s creative process draws from the sciences and mathematics, requires the design and creation of beautifully engineered equipment, and demands an athleticism, fearlessness and precision from her dancers. The result is work that is unique, compelling and popular.

Streb feels that one of the main responsibilities of the arts community is to make art and the artist more familiar to the general public. Streb/Ringside works toward this goal in a way which is intrinsic to the art the company makes. Conscious that the work is attractive to a wide audience that can enjoy the athleticism of the movement and the speed and strength of the dancers, Streb/Ringside likes to perform in spaces which are widely public: the beach; a park; or indeed the hugely public medium of television. These same qualities also make the work attractive to children and they learn the same lessons, that art can be made out of the simplest things.

Founded in 1979, STREB tours extensively throughout the United States and internationally presenting performances and residencies and conducts year-round activity at its home studio/laboratory, the STREB ACTION INVENTION LAB, located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

STREB opened the ACTION LAB in January 2003. Housed in a former warehouse, the ACTION LAB is the company’s creative and educational center where new productions are mounted, classes for children and adults are taught in the POP ACTION School and all company activities – rehearsals, demonstrations, workshops – are open to the public.

The company is committed to presenting its work in traditional and non-traditional venues and has been seen in public spaces throughout New York and across the country in such venues as Vanderbilt Hall in New York’s Grand Central Terminal, the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center in New York, in front of the Cyclone at Coney Island, on the mall outside the Smithsonian Institution, during a Minneapolis Twins and New York Yankees game at the Minnesota Metrodome, in the Anchorage under the Brooklyn Bridge, during intermission of the International Squash Tournament finals and at the State of Illinois Center in Chicago.

STREB has been seen on the David Letterman Show, CBS Sunday Morning, CNN Showbiz Today, Nickelodeon, NBC’s Weekend Today, MTV, ABC Nightly News with Peter Jennings and on Larry King Live.

Links:
www.strebusa.org