CAMDEN, Maine -- This Douglas Adams quote just fluttered right past in a flurry of images and ideas that filled the screen as New York dance impresario Elizabeth Streb presented a 20-minute lecture-slam on homo sapiens' heretofore unexplored abilities in the realm of mechanically unassisted flight.
"You have to have a kernel of an idea," Streb told an Opera House-full of PopTech conference goers. "My kernel was, Wow, I bet people could fly. Not with machines. But maybe no one's ever tried because we don't have hollow bones; we've got pretty dense muscles. But there's a problem with flying: Eventually, you've got to come down. Another great hero of mine Evel Knievel said, 'I never have any trouble with the take-off; it's the landing that's the problem.'"
Her troupe's gravity-defying dances, like the omni-ambulatory gambols of fellow presenter Bill Shannon (below), are at once breathtaking feats of derring-do as well as stunning works of original modern dance.
Her Streb Laboratory for Action Mechanics (S.L.A.M.) in Brooklyn hosts regular performances and classes, the next of which will be tonight and tomorrow night.
In addition to being a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" recipient, Streb is also, according to her PopTech biography, "the Dean's Special Scholar at New York University where she is working toward an interdisciplinary masters degree in time and space." Always good to have a back-up plan, in case the whole flying-unaided-by-mechanical-devices thing doesn't pan out.
[photo by Kris Krug]
