The new documentary Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity.
Elizabeth
Streb’s Extreme Action Company is to American Ballet Theater as
Spider-Man is to a National Geographic special on arachnids. Working out
of an industrial building in Williamsburg, her troupe hones dangerous,
mind-boggling feats: hybrids of dance, acrobatics, performance art,
theater of cruelty, and maybe just plain cruelty. The spiky-haired
Streb, outfitted in motorcycle boots and de rigueur black everything, is
a surprisingly gamine woman whose charisma is as palpable as the
affection and compassion she affords her dancers. Catherine Gund’s
exhilarating documentary records Streb’s latest forays into
gravity-defying actions as well as wonderful archival footage that
records her early decades of work, leading up to the MacArthur “genius”
grant she received in 1997. Two of many jaw-dropping spectacles that
punctuate the movie: Streb dancers bungee-jumping off London’s
Millennium Bridge and dangling fearlessly from the London Eye. Streb
earns her reputation as the Evel Knievel of Dance.
“A portrait of
a maverick artistic sensibility. Routines that sometimes suggest a
meeting of Busby Berkeley and Looney Tunes violence… makes for
jaw-dropping viewing.” – John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter