Elizabeth Streb: What My Teacher Taught Me
September 9, 2013


Choreographer Elizabeth Streb and her troupe, the STREB Extreme Action Company, combine acrobatics and dance to push human physicality to its limits. Her fearlessness and endurance were developed in her adolescence, thanks to her father Leonard Streb.

“My father was a mason. I would go on jobs with him and he would have me carry pails of water from Lake Ontario. I told myself that I would keep carrying those pails until he had enough water. I wasn’t going to stop until I heard the words, ‘That’s enough,’ but he never said that, of course. This is now part of my technique and what I believe the human body is capable of: You don’t ever really stop. You just acclimate and keep going. I like the idea of showing the audience something that seems physically impossible, and I think that comes from my never-say-die mentality.”

STREB will help kick off the Fall for Dance festival with free performances, September 16 and 17, in the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

Photo by Elyssa Goodman

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