Before delving into the ground-breaking, jaw dropping events that the How to Become an Extreme Action Hero crew was privileged enough to both witness and film this weekend during STREB's One Extraordinary Day at the London 2012 Festival, we would like to thank all of our backers who have shown us such generous support since the launch of our Kickstarter campaign. With less than 4 weeks to go, we now have over 100 backers and are nearly 60% funded. In order to actually obtain the funding that has been so kindly pledged, however, we must fully achieve our goal of $40,000 before our deadline. SO we still need support! Please give if you can and help spread the word about our project, which became a whole lot more exciting and tangible this weekend!
On Sunday, July 15th, Elizabeth Streb and the extreme action heroes of the STREB company unleashed their art across the city of London - and the Hero crew was there to capture it all.
The day began at 7:30 am (London time) when 16 STREB dancers suspended themselves from the Millennium Bridge, creating a breathtaking bungee dance. The dancers dove until their bodies nearly grazed the waters of the Thames river, then lunged back up to the bridge's steel boughs in a piece titled "Waterfall." Later in the morning, Elizabeth Streb herself joined two dancers to descend perpendicularly down the facade of London's City Hall. The three extreme action heroes walked fearlessly against gravity from the roof of the building, down until their faces were inches from the sidewalk below their spectators' feet. For the next few hours, STREB performed in both Trafalgar and Paternoster Square with the pieces "Turn," "Ascension" and "Human Fountain." The dancers again fought gravity and other directional forces as they attached themselves to a revolving wheel, climbed and flung themselves from revolving ladders and dove from a scaffolding over 30 feet high, producing music and art from the impact of their bodies on the ground.
Speed Angels (London, 2012)
The STREB action specialists then dove into the evening with "Speed Angels": a performance at the National Theatre during which the dancers flew, twirled and tumbled through the air at the speed of gravity. The grand finale of One Extraordinary Day made history, dropped jaws and shattered previously established limitations and boundaries of the dance performance medium. In the dark of the night, the STREB extreme action heroes took over the London Eye - the largest ferris wheel in Europe, measuring over 500 feet high and more than 1, 240 feet in circumference - creating an awe-inspiring and unforgettable piece of action art. For a full hour, the STREB dancers danced with the spokes and spirals of the immense wheel which was specially set to rotate faster than usual throughout the performance.
For one day, STREB took the Olympic City by storm, pervading its streets and performing historical works of art upon its landmarks. Streb and her troop of action heroes occupied places and spaces that have never previously had humans in them, let alone been stages for dance performance. After all the events had concluded, Streb herself proclaimed that her dancers had "cleared the city with action so the action of the Olympics could begin" - and we were there. The Hero crew filmed from exclusive all-access areas, capturing the perspectives of Elizabeth Streb and her dancers throughout this climactic day in their careers. Below, you will find photographs taken mostly by our director Catherine Gund while filming in London. To see more photos, please visit our film's facebook page.
All of this extraordinary action will provide just one portion of our film. Imagine what else could accompany it! Please, give what you can, donate now and help us bring the magic we have already recorded, and Streb's many extreme ventures that we plan to film in the future, to the public through our documentary.