STREB EXTREME ACTION

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME is a high-impact, heart-stopping display of extreme action, where physics and bodies collide in a series of daring, high-stakes challenges.

Co-artistic directors Elizabeth Streb and Cassandre Joseph invite audiences to experience a collection of new and re-envisioned Action Events that push the limits of physicality, precision, and innovation. STREB’s Action Heroes take on complex and unpredictable environments, navigating industrial-grade obstacles with split-second timing and fearless determination.

From the relentless force of CHAOS MASS, where performers dodge 160-pound swinging pipes and a spinning, swinging, swiping steel I-beam, to the delicate balance of MUSIC BOX, where dancers ascend a rotating 5-inch-wide pipe, every moment is a test of endurance, skill, and sheer nerve. REBAR SOLO transforms the stage into a kinetic puzzle of dropping metal and calculated movement. Plus, an examination of STREB’s signature falling technique, where performers leap from a scaffold structure, cascading in unpredictable, rhythmic bursts, as they surrender to gravity–a splat–in a transfixing examination of both risk and control.

STREB’s latest addition to its Action Machine fleet, MAVERICK SURF, throws the Action Heroes into the turbulence of a towering, simulated wave, challenging them to master momentum and force in a breathtaking battle against motion itself.

This is action at its most extreme—raw, relentless, and impossible to look away from. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME is a visceral experience where risk and artistry collide, and where every near-miss is just part of the game.

MacArthur “Genius” Award-winner, Elizabeth Streb has dived through glass, allowed a ton of dirt to fall on her head, walked down (the outside of) London’s City Hall, and set herself on fire, among other feats of extreme action. Her popular book, STREB: How to Become an Extreme Action Hero (Feminist Press), was made into a hit documentary, Born to Fly directed by Catherine Gund (Aubin Pictures), which premiered at SXSW and received an extended run at The Film Forum in New York City in 2014. Streb founded the STREB Extreme Action Company in 1979. In 2003, she established SLAM, the STREB Lab for Action Mechanics, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. SLAM’s garage doors are always open: anyone and everyone can come in, watch rehearsals, take classes, and learn to fly.

Elizabeth Streb was invited to present a TED Talk (‘My Quest To Defy Gravity and Fly’) at TED 2018: THE AGE OF AMAZEMENT as a mainstage speaker. She has been a featured speaker presenting her keynote lectures at such places as the Rubin Museum of Art (in conversation with Dr. John W. Krakauer), TEDxMET, the Institute for Technology and Education (ISTE), POPTECH, the Institute of Contemporary Art (in conversation with physicist, Brian Greene), The Brooklyn Museum of Art (in conversation with author A.M. Homes), the National Performing Arts Convention, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), the Penny Stamps Speaker Series at the University of Michigan, Chorus America, the University of Utah, and as a Caroline Werner Gannett Project speaker in Rochester NY, and gave the 2019 Commencement Speech at Otis College for Arts and Design among others. Her essay, “Unreasonable Movement, Unreasonable Thought” is featured in the book Are the Arts Essential? published by NYU press in 2022.

Read Elizabeth Streb’s full bio here