To be in the audience at Elizabeth Streb’s SLAM (Streb Lab for
Action Mechanics) is to have experienced a torrid chain of emotions from the time you take your seat to when you are forced to admit that the show is over and you have to leave—and that’s too bad! For the month-long (April 4 – 28) production of Forces the “Action Engineers,” as the performers are so aptly called, must be given more than just applause because as incredulous as the experience is, they, the Action Engineers are the ones who make this real. Streb’s Action Engineers are: Sarah Callan, Jackie Carlson, Leonardo Giron Torres, Felix Hess, Samantha Jakus, Cassandre Joseph, John Kasten, Daniel Rysak, and Fabio Tavares Da Silva (Associate Artistic Director). Forces at SLAM is shaped by loud music pumped by DJ/MC Zaire Baptiste who is also fabulously loud, and a vociferous crowd who eggs on the performers from their seats which are only steps away from the action. We see and feel the sweat fly. The excited crowd is given a tongue-in-cheek warning - “Do not try this at home,” but here’s why audiences want more, and practically hold their breath at a SLAM performance. In Forces, bodies come crashing into a glass wall from both sides, a 200lb high beam is balanced on top of a head, or spins very close above bodies lying flat on the floor, a floor revolving in opposite directions features an Action Engineer slowly going into and out of a matrix-like back bend, another Action Engineer is strapped by ropes allowing her to “fly” high and pretty close to the audience, or magically, the entire company could exchange their incredible gift of man-against-machine with one of the SLAM apparatuses. Video clips of Elizabeth Streb were shown between the thirteen works about people fascinated by these kinds of possibilities, the history of risk-taking, plus her thoughts on gravity, the genius of it all and so much more. Steb even said, “My dream is that humans can fly.” In Forces, they did.
See the YouTube link below for a sneak peak of what you missed. Don't miss the next one - www.streb.org
Action Mechanics) is to have experienced a torrid chain of emotions from the time you take your seat to when you are forced to admit that the show is over and you have to leave—and that’s too bad! For the month-long (April 4 – 28) production of Forces the “Action Engineers,” as the performers are so aptly called, must be given more than just applause because as incredulous as the experience is, they, the Action Engineers are the ones who make this real. Streb’s Action Engineers are: Sarah Callan, Jackie Carlson, Leonardo Giron Torres, Felix Hess, Samantha Jakus, Cassandre Joseph, John Kasten, Daniel Rysak, and Fabio Tavares Da Silva (Associate Artistic Director). Forces at SLAM is shaped by loud music pumped by DJ/MC Zaire Baptiste who is also fabulously loud, and a vociferous crowd who eggs on the performers from their seats which are only steps away from the action. We see and feel the sweat fly. The excited crowd is given a tongue-in-cheek warning - “Do not try this at home,” but here’s why audiences want more, and practically hold their breath at a SLAM performance. In Forces, bodies come crashing into a glass wall from both sides, a 200lb high beam is balanced on top of a head, or spins very close above bodies lying flat on the floor, a floor revolving in opposite directions features an Action Engineer slowly going into and out of a matrix-like back bend, another Action Engineer is strapped by ropes allowing her to “fly” high and pretty close to the audience, or magically, the entire company could exchange their incredible gift of man-against-machine with one of the SLAM apparatuses. Video clips of Elizabeth Streb were shown between the thirteen works about people fascinated by these kinds of possibilities, the history of risk-taking, plus her thoughts on gravity, the genius of it all and so much more. Steb even said, “My dream is that humans can fly.” In Forces, they did.
See the YouTube link below for a sneak peak of what you missed. Don't miss the next one - www.streb.org
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