Elizabeth Streb is great--even the Slam 6 show, which by Streb standards is not so great, is great.

Circusy, yes. Addicted to superheroes, yes. Is all of that pretty corny? Yes.

But corny is real, and people often have to talk like they are superheroes if they are going to act at all like superheroes, and I do think that Streb understands that the space in between the superhero dream and actually achieving the superhero reality is the right space for her to play.

Streb is about presentation, performing, and is trying (IMO) to distance itself from PM dance and "movement research". Great. Action Lab, not Movement Lab.

But she understands that she needs this space of relative artifice to do something totally real. Something more real than what Simone Forti is doing. Art that cleaves to reality either plays to high Chris Burden stakes or winds up being awfully thin and brittle. Real existence is boring. Flying, on the other hand, is not boring at all. It's a dream, and the most beautiful Streb piece ever dealt with the reality of flight (it ends in a thud) with grace and transendent joy because it wasn't about the thud. It was about the brief moment of each dancer realizing a totally great superhero dream. The thud just became what they were willing to endure to get there.

Showing both sides, showing the work, is elegant and complex, and we are ready to accept the existential burden of our dreams. But it is fair of Streb to allow everybody at least a shot at transendence.

Note for myself: steal this, this moving from small to huge. How does she start with a small physical problem (how do dancers dodge this cinderblock? How do I get them to fly? What's with this strap, this wheel? What can it do?) and make it into something universal?

Commitment with entire body and mind is the first answer that comes to mind. Knowing that there is a dream is the second thing. It's about trying to do something that you can't do. It's fundamentally about failing. I should probably remember this. There is something so comfortable and mundane about the atomosphere at the space, something so off-the-cuff and inclusive about what they are doing.