Don't Call It Dance. It's 'Pop-Action'
Elizabeth Streb's desire is to see human beings fly.
The choreographer comes close as a creator of what she calls "pop-action," a movement form that in which the dancers in her company do risky acrobatics. Picture a large iron beam spinning, while dancers circle around it in fast maneuvers. Or dancers leaping horizontally to kick a wall with both feet and then fall on their backs. Or dancers doing somersaults and back flips while dangling from the London Eye Ferris wheel.
Streb's work and company are now the subject of the new documentary Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity, directed by Catherine Gund.
Streb has been performing since the early '70s and she created the Streb company in 1975.
The film covers Streb’s life from childhood – she was adopted at 2, and grew up going fishing, hunting and helping her father, who was a bricklayer.
In this interview, Streb recalls one episode a moment from childhood when her father forgot her, leaving her holding a roof for several minutes. Streb says that experience helped her shape her philosophy as a dancer and choreographer.
“I stayed there and I just tried to examine, how long could I stay there,” she said. “I could stay there forever, if I just focused on the present tense. And I think that was my early training, figuring out what is present tense moment, and how that can be dramatically effective.”
One of the Streb dancers featured in the film is DeeAnn Nelson Burton, who was injured during a performance and had to stop dancing. In the movie, she said: “Before that moment I was involved in this magical experience of being able to do anything, but even in my state which was close to shock probably, I was like 'This is it, this is the end'.”
Streb said the accident was her fault, as is anything that happens inside her company. But Burton wasn't doing something dangerous at the moment and Streb said she couldn't have predicted it. “It was the most serious injury we’ve ever had,” she said.
Catherine Gund said the interview with Burton was moving, especially when the dancer said she would do it again.
Streb said she doesn’t want to think about her legacy. Instead, she wants to continue to challenge what dance is.
“How action can be as powerful as Christo’s The Gates, or Olafur Eliasson's Waterfalls,” she said, referring to two famous public art projects that happened in New York City. “How can we embed ourselves, maybe not in the theater, although we will also do that, but how can we embed ourselves in the world so that any person walking by has an encounter with real action?.”
Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb Versus Gravity plays at Film Forum for one week, beginning Wednesday, Sept. 10.
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