Dancers Essay

Another piece, “Moon,” is also an extended thought-provoking ploy about gravity. Six people perform lying down on a blue floor while an overhead camera projects their images onthe giant screen behind them; the live feed of moving dancers lying down on the blue floor, when projected vertically on the back wall, creates gravitational confusion. The ground seems frictionless against their slippery unitards and the bodies slide effortlessly across the surface. At first, the scene is baffling: The bodies resemble amoebas that are blubbering about under an electron microscope. However, as the work progresses, humor becomes visible and the images are comprehended. When the dancers crunch and creep along the floor, feet braced against its back edge, their images walk awkwardly erect on the wall. Their laborious exercises produce impossible, deceptive actssuch as athletes forming wobbly human pyramids; standing or head-balancing on a partner’s single, upraised hand; or flying upward with no apparent source of propulsion. The image of a gravity-free world is one that is difficult to imitate, yet Streb does the near impossible, per usual.
In the opening Dance of the second half, “Ricochet,” not only do performers repeatedly run forward and launch themselves against a large, transparent pane of clear plastic, but they also press against it, slide down, and mash their faces into the kind of extreme distortions that are unseen in face-to-floor impact. The dancers slam into the Plexiglass wall like birds flying into a bay window; the Plexiglass is amplified to stress the impact, but the impact cannot go unnoticed by any living being with the capability of vision in the theater. Another piece that was particularly astounding was “Ripple.” This work features performers venturing across a stretched truck strap. The dancers dive, run, hop, leap, and bend over around and under the strap; they even walk on it as if it were a tightrope at the top of a circus tent. The men and women can jump on independently, perch a second, and jump off, which ultimately leads to a horde of crazy racing fumbles. At another point in the Dance, Streb may have intended to poke fun at ballet’s courtly assists, which is exemplified during the “Rose Adagio” in the ballet Sleeping Beauty. Four people rotate a female dancer balanced atop the strap in a ballet attitude until her legunfolds into a balanced, straight, vertical arabesque. But then the rest of the dancers fall facefirst onto the mat, not a typical ending for Sleeping Beauty’s suitors. This work is yet another example of a witty and imaginative blend of Dance, circus, and extreme sports. The strap

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