Bio
Elizabeth Streb is a recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation 'Genius' Award (1997) and a member of the New York City Mayor's Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission. Streb is also a member of the board of the Jerome Foundation and a member of the Atlantic Center for the Arts National Council. She holds a Master of Arts in Humanities and Social Thought from New York University, a B.S. in Modern Dance from SUNY Brockport and two honorary doctorates (SUNY Brockport and Rhode Island College). She is the recipient of numerous other awards
and fellowships including the Guggenheim Fellowship in
1987; a Brandeis Creative Arts Award in 1991; two New York
Dance and Performance Awards (Bessie Awards), in 1988 and
1999 for her "sustained investigation of movement"; a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award in 2013; and over
20 years of on-going support from the National Endowment
for the Arts (NEA). In 2010, Feminist Press published her book, STREB: How to Become an Extreme Action Hero.
Once called the Evel Knievel of dance, Elizabeth Streb's choreography, which she calls "POPACTION," intertwines the disciplines of dance, athletics, boxing, rodeo, the circus, and Hollywood stunt-work. The result is a bristling, muscle-and-motion vocabulary that combines daring with strict precision in pursuit of public acts of "pure movement."
Streb has been a featured speaker presenting her Keynote lectures at such places as the Institute for Technology and Education (ISTE), POPTECH, the Institute of Contemporary Art in conversation with Brian Greene, The Brooklyn Museum of Art in conversation with A.M. Homes, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the National Performing Arts Convention, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), as a Keynote speaker at Chorus America, The University of Utah, and as a Caroline Werner Gannett Project speaker.
In 2003, Streb established S.L.A.M. (STREB Lab for Action Mechanics) in Brooklyn, NY. SLAM's garage doors are always open for the community to come in and watch rehearsals, take classes, and learn to fly.
Streb has been featured in documentaries about her work: PopAction by Michael Blackwood, PBS In The Life as one of three stories of gay individuals, PBS's Great Performances for her piece, Wild Blue Yonder, a commission from the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts honoring the invention of the airplane in 1903 by the Wright Brothers. Streb's work has been seen on The David Letterman Show, CBS Sunday Morning, CNN's Showbiz Today, ABC Nightly News with Peter Jennings, Nickelodeon, NBC's Weekend Today, MTV, Channel 11's News-hour, NY 1, and on Larry King Live when she debated with Dick Armey.
In 2011, the STREB company performed sold-out shows at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, the Whitney Museum of American Art's downtown groundbreaking, and at the River to River Festival. Over the course of two decades, STREB has performed in theaters large and small and served as artists-in-residence at the world's top art museums, including Los Angeles MOCA, the Wexner Center in Columbus, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. STREB was commissioned by the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Mayor of London to participate in the London 2012 Festival. On One Extraordinary Day (July 15, 2012), from dawn to midnight, STREB dancers performed 7 action events across major London landmarks including the Millennium Bridge, Trafalgar Square and ending with HUMAN EYE, where 32 daring STREB Action Heroes performed a spoke-dance on the towering, iconic landmark of The London Eye.
