STREB Extreme Action’s company name is truth in advertising: a group of seven superbly-trained athletes who appear to propel themselves into harm’s way, repeatedly—against walls and floors, off of trampolines and multi-story trapeze-like platforms, into and out of close encounters with a spinning industrial I-beam as it careens across stage, and much, much more. In this week’s story on the CHAT Festival at UNC-Chapel Hill, I described their edge-of-your-seat maneuvers, set to a pulsing techno soundtrack and accompanied by live and digitized video, as “a highly caffeinated remix of death-defying circus acts, gymnastics, motion-picture stunt work and modern dance.”
Choreographer, inventor, and action architect Elizabeth Streb
I spoke with choreographer, self-styled action architect—and MacArthur Foundation “Genius grant” award winner—Elizabeth Streb by phone on Feb. 6, a snowy afternoon in Philadelphia, between the company’s matinee and evening performances at the Annenberg Center’s Zellerbach Theater.
Carolina Performing Arts presents her company Friday and Saturday night in Memorial Hall. Click here for more information and tickets for the show.
Independent: How would you characterize your interest in technology in terms of the work you’re interested in doing on stage? What does technology enable you to do?
Elizabeth Streb: I would say it’s equal: My interest and passion in technology and hardware – mechanical, electronic, hydraulic, what have you – my love for those types for technology is equal to my love of movement. I see them completely similarly; they’re a congruency to me. For the idea of STREB, I started working with more quotidian objects back in the early 1980s: sticks, wood, hills, ropes and hoops. As I developed, I really started to get more metal and hardware devices involved in what I was doing.
It’s like music. As when someone, way back when, decided the human voice alone wasn’t sufficient to express everything the human might express in terms of pitch, key, melody and harmony, I felt that in a Newtonian universe, on the ground, the body’s biomechanical system, which lends itself to motion, was not, in itself, sufficient. Not to express all that can be expressed in terms of physicality.
So we invent hardware, and collaborate with a lot of different technicians, from MIT’s Media Lab and ASU Electronic Arts department to [trapeze artists and engineers] Noe and Ivan Espana, to create pieces of equipment that we can inhabit and develop new physical spatial and temporal vocabularies.
I don’t recall who defined technology as devices that extend the body’s various capacities. It sounds like one of your main interests involves extending the body’s abilities to do a number of things.
It’s sort of a funny thing. I think the initial, more basic question is, “What is the potential content of action?” Not the body doing movement, or machines working the beautiful way they work and function, or the utilitarian aspects of machines and the body, separately and together. But is there a language, exactly, that we can construct with physicality—whether it’s machine-based, electronically-based or physically-based—that will have its own grammar and syntax? That’s my goal.
I’m not just adding equipment and technology because I like it—although I really do. I do it because I think… [pauses] Okay. Let’s take just one aspect of what it means to move and talk about space. If I’m only 5 feet 7 inches tall, and I go into a theater that happens to be 30 or 40 feet tall, then I’m essentially ignoring the major hunk of that space. And for visual and physical reasons, I think that’s a disappointment to the audience and also sort of a tragedy.
When we have a wheel, an injection device, or cables and harnesses, that gets us up into that location. Otherwise, I feel that that location, that empty space, should not exist.
It’s easy enough to say that Gaspard&Dancers posted the strongest opening bid of any regional dance company in recent years in their Sunday, December 6 company premiere at Reynolds Theater. In a region where dance in general and modern dance in particular has waned over this decade, there’s been precious little competition for such a superlative. Still, if a Durham audience gave their opening work, Anemone, a somewhat subdued response, by evening’s end the crowd was on its feet in support of choreographer and dancer Gaspard Louis and his new modern dance group.
And yet, for a dance critic—and, I strongly suspect, for Mr. Louis himself—such accolades seem, in retrospect, a bit beside the point: If standing ovations in Durham are better than the proverbial sharp stick in the eye, they still don’t always indicate if dance creators have truly achieved their artistic goals.
Tonight, Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca take UNC’s Memorial Hall through a passionate tour of this Spanish dance and musical form. The name should be familiar: the group closed the American Dance Festival in 2006 — with a vengeance. Here’s what we found in our July 26, 2006 review:
“At the end of the first act, we’d been all but catapulted out of Page Auditorium on the bravado and the daring of dancer Juan Oglalla’s “Maria - Alegrias.” His solo was equal parts psychodrama and dance, as it deceptively swayed from cool disregard to laser-like insistence.
We watched as he negotiated a polyrhythmic labyrinth and technical torture chamber of his own devising; a hellish gauntlet of 30-second and 32nd-note subdivisions within already subdivided syncopated beats.
Call it dancing on a tightrope for one. But that would ignore guitarists Eugenio Iglesias and Luis Miguel Manzano, and the singing of cantaores Manuel Gago, Emilio Florido and Nieves Diaz who kept the melodic line taut — that is, when they didn’t give it a good hard snap, every so often, just to ensure the continued interest of all parties.
By the end of Act 1, the audience was certain it had been petitioned, harangued, warned, pleaded with and advised by the cantaores, even though the overwhelming majority couldn’t understand a word they’d said. The dancers’ eyes didn’t search the darkness before them; they studied it instead. The harsh, hoarse voices of the singers, rubbed raw with emotion, cried out again and again over what they knew. Repeatedly, the performers’ hands grasped, bent and broke off notes in mid-breath. Then their outstretched palms opened, as if holding the excavated facts of desolation.
We were being served notice: Love beckons loss. And as for the particulars? They’re as meaningless as the tongue in which they’re sung.
What kept all of this from veering into parody? What divides drama from melodrama? Sincerity, perhaps. Or maybe it’s a certain cautionary knowledge: Suffering is universal. Perhaps that’s why we didn’t need a translator for this particular performance. On an innate level, we all recognize a cry of pain.
Our tutelage that night included emphatic dances that fully acknowledged the extremity of passion and pain; dances that faced the darkness squarely with a ferocious — and, ultimately, finite — dignity.
Was this an obscure dance and musical form, rendered in a language even more obscure? No. It was a return to the very foundation of the drama instead — the classic form of tragedy.
The Nov. 12 performance by Urban Bush Women at Duke’s Reynolds Theater began with a lone dancer, her arms and shoulders rippling with muscles, standing under a misty spotlight as someone offstage read the names of African-American leaders and activists from Sojourner Truth to Malcolm X. It set the tone for the evening.
Though Urban Bush Women performances are ostensibly a form of modern dance, they’re more Toni Morrison than Martha Graham. The troupe’s six dancers avoid nearly any hint of classical ballet forms, focusing on athletic, dramatic stomps, slaps and chest bumps. Troupe founder and choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar uses dance to give voice and movement to the African-American experience.
The four choreographed works performed at Duke were social commentary as performance, and not in a subtle way either. The opener to “Naked City,” a new work designed to represent the history of Harlem, began with the dancers, in turn, howling like animals as they sat in folding chairs. The show’s final moments, at the end of a long piece based on the diaries of African-American dancer Pearl Primus, showcased a kind of tribal dance hybrid, complete with chants from the dancers and an onstage reading of excerpts from Primus’s writings.
But the best moment, for my money, was from one of UBW’s earliest pieces, “Sisters,” which managed to tell a compelling and often hilarious story of childhood without a word spoken. Like Morrison’s writing, UBW’s performances are interpretive and sometimes inscrutable, but the focus on impressionistic, non-linear storytelling opens the door to something that is unconventional and beautiful, and couldn’t be expressed any other way.
DURHAM—At 8:30 Saturday night, Oct. 24, Michael Jackson fans gathered at The Pavilion at Durham Central Park for a tribute to the late entertainer calledThrill the World. It was a part of a worldwide event meant to synchronize participants at 12:30 a.m. UTC/GMT doing a dance similar to the one in Jackson’s “Thriller” music video.
The first“Thriller” dance took place in Toronto in 2006, in an affair that drew 62 people and set the Guinness Book of World Records’ “record” for most “Thriller” dancers in one place and time. By last year, the event had gone global and attracted more than 4,000 did the (nearly) inimitable dance.
Approximately 40 people turned out to the Durham gig, which was planned and executed locally within a span of two weeks.
Footage taken by Belem Destefani. Video produced by Belem Destefani and Sarah Ewald.
Each year, thousands of young ballerinas dream of entering The Juilliard School, the pre-eminent conservatory in the United States for professional training in the performing arts. Of those, only hundreds actually work up the resume—and the nerve—to show up for one of nine regional auditions held annually across the country.
The day begins with an advanced ballet and modern dance class—where three-fourths of the applicants are weeded out. The survivors from that round present a two-minute solo they’ve prepared: two whole minutes to show your full range and achievement as a performer. In New York, 22 members of the dance faculty are your audience—not the entire department, perhaps, but a generous representation nonetheless.
They sit and silently watch you perform the work in the video clip here. When you finish, they don’t applaud. Instead, one just says “Thank you,” and you leave.
Should you make that cut, you’re invited back to be taught a section from a piece out of Juilliard’s repertory, to see how quickly you pick up new choreography, how you function in an ensemble rehearsal, and how you respond to corrections. Survive that, and there’s the interview; a cozy one-on-one, with open-ended questions about everything from your source of inspiration as an artist to your views on the greatest challenge facing your generation.
Thousands dream of joining the ranks of famous alumni, including Martha Clarke, Susan Marshall, Ohad Naharin and Paul Taylor; of being taught by a faculty that has included Martha Graham, Anthony Tudor and José Limon.
Hundreds apply.
In the end, only twelve are chosen.
This year, one is coming from Raleigh. Her name is Lea Ved.
The footage you see here is of Beloved Renegade, as rehearsed by the Paul Taylor Dance Company at the 2009 American Dance Festival. Paul Taylor established his company in 1954 in Manhattan along with five other dancers. The dance company since then has performed in 520 cities and 62 countries. Among other accomplishments, Taylor has won an Emmy award for outstanding choreographer for 1992’s Paul Taylor’s Speaking in Tongues.
Beloved Renegade premiered in 2008 and is inspired by the works of the great American poet Walt Whitman, and set to Francis Poulenc’s Gloria. Reviewing the work in February, The New York Times‘ Alastair Macauley called the piece “one of the great achievements of Mr. Taylor’s long career and one of the most eloquently textured feats of his singular imagination.”
The company will also perform two pieces in addition to Renegade. Mercuric Tidings (1982) uses excerpts from Franz Schubert’s first and second symphonies while Scudorama, an ADF-commissioned-work created in 1963, is described by the festival as a “gem most Taylor devotees haven’t seen, complete with a jazzy-classical score by Clarence Jackson.”
Images of Doug Elkins and Friends performing Fraülein Maria at the 2009 American Dance Festival. Commentary and production by Belem Destefani and Sarah Ewald.
Frequent Indy contributor Kate Dobbs Ariail saw the show Monday night and just published this review at cvnc.org.
A male dancer catapults himself onto a small table on center stage. He slowly moves into a handstand, then contorts himself to lay perpendicular to the stage, supported by one hand. The audience clapped and cheered. It could only be a Cirque trick.
But which Cirque?
Obviously, what comes first to mind is Cirque du Soleil. I’ve never seen Cirque du Soleil live, but I grew up devoted to it on TV. Back in Bravo’s pre-Project Runway days, they used to air a lot of Cirque du Soleil specials, thus providing one of my first introductions to what I considered avant-garde theater. However, after the movie Knocked Up associated Cirque du Soleil with a bad mushroom trip in Las Vegas, the company probably lost a little of its claim to hipness.
In the past three weeks, I’ve seen two different cirques. However, neither was a Soleil. One was a media sneak peek at an upcoming show at Durham Performing Arts Center, and one was a performance with symphony accompaniment at Cary’s Koka Booth Amphitheatre.
The sneak peek was for a Florida-based outfit called Cirque Dreams, which has a new production it’s calling Illumination. Naturally, light is a major portion: The video consisted of glow-in-the-dark objects that resembled flags and a line drawing of stair-steps reminiscent of a page from Harold and the Purple Crayon. A character called The Director features prominently, whose main characteristic is blowing a whistle with such frequency to rival the Grandmother in The Triplets of Belleville. As much as we could glean from the film, the show is devoted to acrobatics featuring one-handed balancing acts and aerial spinning with rings and scarves.
After the video screened, three performers came onstage to entertain the audience. Two of the dancers in red hounds-tooth suits performed a pantomime involving one being controlled by the other. The third, clad in a sparkly tank top and sailor pants, balanced on a small platform and did the ever-popular one-handed handstand, gaining applause from the assembled media.
Cirque Dreams takes the stage at DPAC from Sept. 15-20. Here’s video from Illumination:
Lisa Creech Bledsoe on "Notes from IgniteRaleigh: To be a spark, and not to be rickrolled": "Speed dating for the tech set," funny! Nice write up of an incredible event. I'm voting for Scrubby next year. Scrub-by, Scrub-by, Scrub-by!
Lisa aka @glowbird (the boxing chick)
DK on "Notes from IgniteRaleigh: To be a spark, and not to be rickrolled": Just moved back to the Triangle from Seattle, which is where Ignite started. It kind of caught on and blew up really fast, and organizers had to keep upping the venue.
I think people have been looking for this kind of cabaret for a while. They like going somewhere and being a crowd together, and it's
Christine Fawley on "Notes from IgniteRaleigh: To be a spark, and not to be rickrolled": A fabulous night highlighting the diversity of talent and intellectual pursuits here in the Triangle. An event like this could be held every month and still barely scratch the surface of the passions of our community.
We were honored to be included and appreciated the support and enthusiasm of the crowd as we delivered "20
The Nov. 12 performance by Urban Bush Women at Duke’s Reynolds Theater began with a lone dancer, her arms and shoulders rippling with muscles, standing under a misty spotlight as someone offstage read the names of African-American leaders and activists from Sojourner Truth to Malcolm X. It set the tone for the evening.
