Extreme action company STREB will bring its program of choreographed physical feats that combine daredevil antics, rapid movement and imaginative machines to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this month.
Carolina Performing Arts will present the shows at 7:30 p.m. on March 18-19 at Memorial Hall.
The New York Times notes that the performance “doesn’t so much push the boundaries of strength and endurance as it removes them.” The program includes “Fly,” in which a dancer is harnessed into a giant spinning claw and “Slice,” where dancers perform remarkable moves to avoid a spinning steel beam that descends from the ceiling. “Turn” features a spinning floor, “Bound” forces the performers to navigate a wall that turns into a steep hill for “Tumult,” causing the cast to scramble, surf and ski across its surface. The finale, “Whizzing Gizmo,” features a giant, two ton hamster wheel.
Audience members are encouraged to stand, take pictures and live tweet the performance.
STREB has been featured on ABC Nightly News, The David Letterman Show, Nickelodeon and MTV, among many others. STREB has also been seen in public spaces throughout New York and across the country, including New York’s Grand Central Terminal, the Cyclone at Coney Island, on the mall outside the Smithsonian Institution and the company presented a series of audacious spectacles, unveiled at some of London’s most iconic landmarks during the 2012 Olympics.
Once called the Evel Knievel of dance, MacArthur genius grant recipient Elizabeth Streb’s choreography, which she calls “PopAction,” intertwines the disciplines of dance, athletics, boxing, rodeo, the circus and Hollywood stunt-work. The result is a bristling, muscle-and-motion vocabulary that combines daring with strict precision in pursuit of the public display of “pure movement.”
“Forces” is co-directed by Robert Woodruff (Dog Days, ART), with music by longtime Streb collaborator, David Van Tieghem. It features a book by Jim Lewis (Fela!) and projection design by Wendell Harrington (Grey Gardens) and Erik Pearson. Spatial Rift video design is by Aaron Henderson. Robert Wierzel (Fela!) is the lighting designer and costume design is by Andrea Lauer (Bring It On, American Idiot).
For ticket information, please visit Carolina Performing Arts.
Published March 10, 2014.