Perhaps you’ve heard of Elizabeth Streb, the MacArthur genius grant-winning choreographer who’s been plying her unique style of “pop action” dance in New York City for decades. Perhaps you’ve not. Either way, the new documentary about her work, “Born to Fly,” is a fine primer to her daring, death-defying style of dance and to the unique artist herself. Directed by Catherine Gund, the film focuses on what makes Streb (as most everyone refers to her) tick—what drives her to create in the way that she does.
The dancers in the Streb Extreme Action Company hurl their bodies at walls, dodge swinging i-beams and cement blocks, and fall from great distances onto their faces—all gracefully of course. And that’s just when they’re inside, outside they walk down the faces of skyscrapers, float and fly and swing suspended from cables and bungees. Streb has warehouse in Williamsburg that houses her Streb Lab for Action Mechanics, which is sort of a mad scientist’s lair for not only dance but...
