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[Music]
ELIZABETH STREB: They call the action Streb. And we think it stands for strength, trust,
risk, energy, body.
[Music]
My studio in Brooklyn, my laboratory, is called Slam! and that stands for Streb Lab for Action
Mechanics. It's designed to be open source. it's all public, all the time. Y'know, sort
of modeled after a 7/11 rather than a church. I'd love it to be a public park. I want to
see if there's some equation that would create a vibrant space that was all public all the
time and I chose Streb Extreme Action and we would share that space with Kids' Action,
which now has something like 350 kids a week come through there and our rehearsals and
some of our shows would happen there. And a rental program. I was very interested in
seeing how my dancers could rehearse while kids were flying around and renters were there
with their lyra and their hoops. I wanted to demythologize the practice of making work
and bring back in some of the people that as a young artist, y'know I couldn't keep
out because I was working in cheap spaces that had a lot of traffic. So going back to
that has revitalized my practice and also I keep meeting all these people. They come
in y'know. They're kids from a high school in the Bronx or they're a family that met
us in Wyoming when we were touring and it has been a vivid exchange of information.
I think also the notion—the notion that there's maybe three things going on at the
same time while I'm rehearsing in the middle of the day with my company. I don't know who
those people are. We just glance across the space and acknowledge each other and each
others' practice and in this osmotic way, learn from it. It's just been a very invigorating
idea my question now is the messages embedded in the surface of the outside of buildings
like you talk of Lincoln Center or Carnagie Hall or City Center or BAM, etcetera etcetera
are in those fabrics. Those materials. Y'know, glass and wood and brick. And I guess the
final thing I'd say that I thought was most critical was what do I offer? I was trying
to take what I've made in the high art world y'know because I had to have a reputation
to do this type of this experiment and I wanted to throw that product, that movement that
I call pop action, back onto the slop of the street. No one cared and respected it at all
to see and examine what relevance it might have and I also wanted to understand issues
of class and I came from the working class, I was adopted at two years old and my father
was—my adoptive father—was a mason and it was not, it is not like that in the dance
world. Anyway, I am very very interested in diversifying the audience. And the audience
I just don't mean race and point of view. I mean class and I believe that the theater…
it's difficult to have a very working class person, it's not impossible, to go into a
theater and feel comfortable. So I want that to be true of SLAM. I want them to walk in
there and just think it's their space. They pay taxes and they own it. I believe it's
critical to keep it public, keep it open to intruders and I actually think the equation
of strangers and interruption create magic. There's not an idea that exists that can't
be interrupted if it's a good enough idea it'll come back to you and I think that that
makes the space vibrant because what's more critical than construction workers building
a building. Everyone's watching them. Why can't I be watched? I'm never going to talk
anyone into believing this is critical and it increases our vital life signs and our
happiness quotient and all that. Again, we're still gathering data. I can't prove anything.
We just notice how much fun it is to go to work.
I'm Elizabeth Streb. Subscribe to THNKR.