STREB SLAM show X review

No description or video can prepare you for Elizabeth Streb’s SLAM Show X. They may inform you about what you will see, but they cannot convey the power and danger that you will witness during the show. Long known for her Hollywood stunt-style performances, Ms. Streb’s tenth work-in-process showing continues the trend.

Climbing ropes, ladders and even the steel support beams of the building, the show’s performers (Action Engineers) launch themselves into a dead fall to the mats fifteen feet below. This opening piece, Falling Everywhere, becomes a signature move of the evening. Also signature of Streb technique seems to be announcing each new stunt before its performance, although this might be as much a safety precaution as a stylistic choice.

 Crash is probably the most dramatic work in the set. Performed on a springboard runway jutting into the audience, the Engineers perform quasi-gymnastic floor exercises Streb style, that is instead of sticking the landing, they throw their bodies into painful sounding slams that TV wrestlers only dream about. Even though aided by a floor mic, the body reverberations draw gasps and winces from the house as the performers continue their acrobatic leaps ending in resounding crashes.

 Moon is a departure from the main body of work in that it is set in only two dimensions. Performed by dancers lying on the stage floor and projected by means of an overhead camera, the dancers on the screen appear to be performing balancing acts possible only in a near weightless environment.

 But when you talk to Streb attendees what you hear most about is Revolution. Taking its name from giant steel hamster wheel that forms its setting, the company’s energy and daring is summarized in this breakneck beauty. Alternately running on the inner and outer sides of the wheel, propelling it with their bodies or leaping from its peak, the performers the turn the unwieldy monstrosity into a thing of athletic beauty.

 Watching this performance every audience member has to question, “is it safe”? That depends on the definition of “safe.” Certainly everything has been done to see that the equipment and techniques perform to design. In that sense everything has been done to guard against an accident.  But it’s not “safe” in the sense that the work itself is dangerous. There is a real element of risk. I would like to believe that it’s not a morose expectation of seeing someone injured that brings us back to see Slam Shows, but an attraction to real bravery at close range. Live people facing real danger and walking away from it. There is something quintessentially human about that. It is art; in that it helps us better understand what it means to be human.

 Ms. Streb’s work also represents a future for live performances. It cannot be syndicated, viewed on a mobile phone or Tivoed. It is live performance in its essence and it makes you feel alive to witness it.

 If you go:

Playing through Sunday at SLAM in Brooklyn

Friday and Saturday at 7PM

Saturday and Sunday at 3PM

Tickets: Adults $20, kids $10