ELIZABETH STREB elizabeth@strebusa.org

In 1997 Elizabeth Streb was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation 'Genius' award. She is currently the 'Dean's Special Scholar' at New York University at the Draper Program working towards an M.A. in Time and Space studying Physics, Philosophy and Architecture.

Streb's choreography, (she calls it POPACTION) intertwines the disciplines of dance, athletics, extreme-sports, and Hollywood stunt work into a bristling muscle and motion vocabulary that combines daring and strict precision in the pursuit of attempting to display publicly the aggressive and deep effect of 'pure movement.'

STREB the dancers and the show have been seen on the David Letterman show, in a special on CBS Sunday Morning, on CNN's Showbiz Today, Nickelodeon, NBC's Weekend Today,on MTV, on Larry King Live debating with Dick Armey about the National Endowment for the Arts and on ABC Nightly News with Peter Jennings.

Ms. Streb is a recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a three-year choreography fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and awards from the Endowment, yearly, for subsequent 15 years, two New York Dance and Performance Awards ('Bessie') in 1988 and 1999 for her 'sustained investigation of movement,' a National Dance Residency Program Award sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trust, a National Dance Program award from the New England Foundation for the Arts, a 1987 Guggenheim Fellowship, two New York Foundation for the Arts awards, and a Brandeis Creative Arts Award in 1991.

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TOURING COMPANY

JACKIE CARLSON

Coming from Detroit, Michigan, Jackie has studied ballet, jazz, lyrical, tap, and gymnastics since the age of 6. She's won many awards and scholarships in the dance competition world, including Miss Dance of Michigan in 2000, and "Most Outstanding Dancer '01" with NYC Dance Alliance. She spent 5 consecutive summers on full scholarship at The Milwaukee Ballet School, then moved to New York City right out of high school to join The Dance Theatre of Harlem ballet company. She has studied under and has been directed by such renowned dance artists as Arthur Mitchell, Jordeen Ivanov-Ericson, Nicolas Petrov, Mia Michaels, and Dan Karaty. But Jackie's dream came true when her lifetime goal of becoming a stunt double, and her love of dancing COLLIDED and STREB appeared!

SARAH DONNELLY

Sarah Donnelly was born and raised in Oakland, California. She trained at the Berkeley Ballet Theater, the Ailey School, and the Joffrey Ballet. She attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and received a BFA in Dance and a BA in political Science in 2002. Sarah has danced for Nicole Berger, Mary Seideman, Khalda Logan, Alona Mor, and Breezey Berryman and is a founding member of Refractions Dance Collective. She currently works at the Thurgood Marshall Academy as a program coordinator and plays the electric keyboard for BFF. Sarah is thrilled to be a part of Streb.

AMI IPAPO

Ami Bodami Ipapo is a competition kid turned aerialist turned action engineer. A native of North Carolina, she graduated Magna Cum Laude from East Carolina University with a BFA in modern dance. She has performed throughout the U.S. and internationally, working with choreographers including Gabriel Masson, Mia Michaels, Ezra Caldwell and Nai-Ni Chen. Her pieces "Falling X" and "Oh Sheet!" have been featured in STREB's Slam Shows. In addition to flying and falling with STREB, Ami works as a Pilates instructor and personal trainer.
She loves playing dress up and hanging with her BFFs.

CASSANDRE JOSEPH

Cassandre Joseph was born and raised in Brooklyn. She began training in artistic gymnastics at the age of 4. Her career spanned 18 years, during which she earned several state, regional, and national titles. Since her retirement, Cassandre has searched for a replacement in dance, capoeira, and in performing aerial arts. She holds a B.A in English Literature from Cornell University. She ecstatic to have found Streb and is looking forward to being part of the family.

KEVIN LINDSAY

Kevin Lindsay holds a B.S. in Dance Performance from Southern Utah University where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. He has presented his choreography at the American College Dance Festival and has also performed choreography by Kay Andersen at the Dance in the Desert Festival in Las Vegas. Kevin is delighted to be working with Elizabeth Streb.

FABIO TAVARES

Fabio Tavares Da Silva had his first performance experience as an acrobat at the age of 15 when he ran away to join a local circus in his native country, Brazil. He has been living and performing in New York since 1999. His work is strongly influenced by Susan Klein and Barbara Mahler, as well as circus arts and
physical theater. Fabio has collaborated with Fly-by-Night Dance Theater, Underfoot Dance, Circus Amok, Jennifer Monson, Johanna Heigensheidt and Luis Lara Malvacias among others. He is currently working towards his certification in both Klein Technique and Zero Balancing. In addition to working with STREB, Fabio is also making his own work.

LEONARDO GIRON TORRES

This is his first season with the company. He began tumbling at a young age in Colombia as a competitive gymnast before transitioning to dance. He began studying dance under the direction of Cindy Mancini and Joseph Carrow, performing many lead roles. He recently graduated from George Mason University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Dance. He has also worked with several known choreographers such as Dana Tai Soon Burgess, Keith Thompson, Carla Perlo, Reggie Glass, and Helenius J. Wilkins. He performed a leading role in the 2003 national tour of Burgess' Nightingale. Leonardo wishes to thank his wife and family for all their support.

COLLABORATORS

MICHAEL CASSELLI (Set Design)

NOE AND IVAN ESPANA

Noe and Ivan Espana are the sons of a circus legacy, the fifth generation heirs to an incredible array of Espana circus talent and history. In the true circus tradition, they are the product of family training and development, much of it taking place in the spotlight before live audiences. They began performing as young children in their uncle's Krony Circus in Mexico. Their talents found initial expression on the trampoline, where at an early age each had mastered the double and triple somersaults, and triple twisting somersaults. Even before their teens, they had begun practicing to join the family's flying trapeze act . . . and by the end of their teens, they were accomplished stars. The rest is history: from important bookings with Circus Atayde in Mexico and at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen to featured status with Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey Circus, a prominent appearance in the Lear Levin-Walt Disney Pictures production "Circus," and a Silver Clown award for their performance on the flying trapeze at the International Circus Festival in Monte Carlo. The range of their repertoire has grown to include everything from the exquisitely graceful bungee trapeze to signature performances on the giant Skywheel and in the motorcycle Globe of Death. Now themselves at the helm of their own action entertainment company, Espana Entertainment, Inc., Noe and Ivan have carried their fascination with presentation, style, and dangerous motion to new levels with their spectacular seventy minute production, Espana Extreme, a blend of innovative, cutting edge circus and extreme sports, with brilliant costuming, dramatic state-of-the-art apparatus, riveting contemporary music, and high-tech lighting and pyrotechnics.

LAURA FLANDERS (Librettist)

Laura Flanders is the host of Working Assets Radio with Laura Flanders, a live, caller-driven conversation with the key activists and artists of our time. You can hear www.workingforchange.com/radio Working Assets Radio, Monday-Friday, on KALW, 91.7 fm in San Francisco, and online at www.workingassetsradio.com Flanders' "Spin Doctor Laura" column appears three times a week on www.workingforchange.com. Flanders is the author of Real Majority, Media Minority; the cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting, about which Susan Faludi wrote, "If only there were a hundred of her." Katha Pollitt called it "Funny, angry, fact-filled and brilliant." (Common Courage Press, 1997).

AARON HENDERSON (Projection Design)

Aaron Henderson studied painting and theory at the University of Michigan with Joseph Grigely, and Traditional Japanese Painting in Kyoto. He moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he began inquiring into technology and performance at the Ohio State University. He worked with the ENVIRONMENT collective, developing his technical skills and artistic voice in many media. His short video “Mud”, described as “a delicious cross between finger painting, horror flicks, and performance art,” premiered at the Wexner Center, in Columbus, Ohio in 2001. He also designed inflatable costumes for, in’ter, the collective’s featured performance of 2000. Aaron was the editor and founder of the International Thought Exchange, a now defunct mail art organization that brought quarterly joy to hundreds of people across the globe.
He is the co-founder of LOSTWAX (with choreographer Jamie Jewett), an east coast collaborative creating dynamic and organic fusions of performance and video. Snowblind, a solo dance/video performance was hailed as “mind opening…” by the Boston Globe in 2003. His most recent multimedia performance, After the Fall, a collaboration with author Thalia Field and Jamie Jewett, delves into the mind of the grandfather of technology and art, Daedalus. He is currently designing the video projections for STREB's new show SUPERFORCE.

SHELLY SABEL (Lighting Designer)

Shelly Sabel's design career spans numerous arenas. Dance credits include collaborations with Savion Glover and his company Ti Dii on work including A Tribute to Gregory Hines at the Tillis Center and the 2002 Olympic Arts festival. (Shelly also designed scenery and lighting for Jared "Choclatt" Crawford's Keep Bangin' directed by Mr. Glover). Off Broadway credits include As You Like It at the Public Theater, Trust, Debbie Does Dallas and Spanish Girl at Second Stage uptown. (All with Director Erica Schmidt). Regional credits: Four seasons with the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey, and two seasons with the Chautauqua Theater company. In April, she had her first exhibition of her lighting sculpture at the Ubon Gallery in Manhattan. She is the lighting designer for the windows of both the Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan flagship stores on Madison Avenue. Shelly holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

MAXIM SAFIOULLINE (Sound)

Maxim Safioulline was born in Russia in 1979 and moved to the United States at age 20. Since graduating from the Institute of Audio Research in New York, he has been working as a sound designer and engineer in studios and theaters throughout the New York tri-state area. His approach to audio can be summed up by the phrase “a minimum of tools for maximum expression.” In STREB vs. GRAVITY, he works to transform the movement on stage with sound, to create a complex multimedia experience.

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Artists-In-Residence

HOPE CLARK

Hope danced with Elizabeth Streb from 1991-1999. She was her Associate Artistic Director for six years. She designed and directed Kid Action from 1993-1999 creating dances for children that were performed Nationally and Internationally with the company. In 2000 Hope was commissioned by"Celebrate Brooklyn" and DTW's Bessie Schonberg/First Light Commissioning Project to create Raw.Seeds.Need. She created Fragile.Family.Structures. in 2002 Commissioned by Danspace project's 2001-02 Initiative with support from the Jerome Foundation. Jennifer Dunning of the NY Times wrote of her work as " a kind of secret garden of the soul". Hope returned to perform with Streb In 2003 for Wolftrap's First Flight Project. This year Hope was guest artist at the University of Utah making a new piece for 21 graduate and undergraduate students and teaching Technique, Improvisation, and Composition classes.

http://homepage.mac.com/hopeclark

NED MALOUF

Ned Malouf was Born in Heidelberg W. Germany and reared in Logan, Utah. He received formal dance training at Portland State University in Oregon and at SUNY Purchase, New York. Ned first danced with STREB from 1993-1997. After several guest appearances with the company, he became a company member again in Janurary, 2005. Other disciplines perused include contact improvisation, trampoline, trapeze, downhill skiing and dance-filmmaking. He has performed with Stanley Love, Lisa Giobbi, Momix, Meredith Monk, Danny Ezralow & Friends, Jody Oberfelder, Keith Goodman, Mihn Tran, Carolyn Altman, Touch Monkeys, Pan Twilight Circus, Do Jump and The Afro-Cuban Dance Ensemble.

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Staff

Kim Cullen, Producing Director – kim@strebusa.org
Henry Liles, Finance Manager
Justin Dapolito, Technical Director – dap@strebusa.org
Sarah Donnelly, Director of Education and Access – info@strebusa.org
Bobby Hedglin- ESTA Director- trapeze@strebusa.org

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Board of Directors

CHERYL BATZER
SHERON DAVIS
PAULA GIFFORD (President)
HELEN MARDEN
HARRY MIZRAHI (Treasurer)
ROBERT REITZFELD
ELLEN SALPETER
SUZANNE SHAKER (Secretary)
ELIZABETH STREB
ANDREA WOODNER

Past Contributors

MILES GREEN (Sound Design), MATTY OSTROWSKI (Sound Design), HEATHER CARSON (Lighting Design), BILL BALLOU (Set design - Bessie - '98), MICHAEL CASSELLI (Set Design - Bessie - '98), NICK FORTUNATO (Video Rodeo), PHIL CROWDER (Harness Design, Rigging), JIM LARKIN (Technical Director), DAN JAGENDORF (Set Design), TERRY JACKSON (Technical Director), BEVERLY EMMONS (Lighting Design), MARY LUCIER (Video), MICHAEL SCHWARTZ (Rigging, Video), JIM FARMER (Composer), DANITA GELTNER (Prop Design), CAROL MULLINS (Lighting Design), EARL HOWARD (Sound), GRETCHEN LANGHELD (Sound), JOHN REDMAN (Rigging), MARTIN GRAVES (Production Stage Manager), MICHAEL O'MAHONY (Rigging), CAROL GLAAB (Video), DAVID TAYLOR (Technical Director), WILL KNAPP (Production Stage Manager), JONAH LAWRENCE (Sound)

MICHAEL SCHWARTZ ('81-'84, '87-'88), DIANN SICHELL ('84-'85), JOSEPH ARIAS ('84-'85), NANCY ALFARO ('85-'87), DANIEL MCINTOSH ('85-'88), JANE SETTEDUCATO ('85-'87), PAULA GIFFORD ('86-'94, Bessie), HENRY BEER ('87-'89), PETER LAROSE ('88-'89), JORGE COLLAZO ('88-'91), CHRISTOPHER BATENHORST ('89-'95, Bessie), GARY LUTES ('89-'91), MARK ROBISON ('89-'96, Bessie), HOPE CLARK ('91-'00, '03, Bessie - '98), BRIAN LEVY ('91-'93), ADOLPHO PATI ('91-'95), KATRINA BIRCHFIELD ('93), NED MALOUF('93-'96, '03, '05), CHRISTINE KNIGHT ('94-'96), JOHN LANDES ('94-'95), LIAM CLANCY ('95-'96), ALMA LARGEY ('95-'96), SOLDANELA RIVERA ('95-'96) , GUADALUPE MARTINEZ ('95-'96), MATTHEW STROMBERG ('96-'99), SHEILA CARRERAS BRANDSON ('96-'02), LISA LEANN DALTON ('96-'02), ELI MCAFEE ('96-'03), CHRISTINE MCQUADE ('96-'99), JASON JAWORSKI ('96), ALBERT ELMORE JUNIOR ('96-'99), NIKITA MAXWELL ('99-'04), BORIS WILLIS ('99), BRANDON O'DELL ('00), CHANTAL DEEBLE JACKSON ('00-'04), BRIAN BROOKS ('00-'03), WEENA PAULY ('01-'04), JONAH SPEAR ('03-'05), AARON HENDERSON ('03-'06), CHRISTINE CHEN ('04-07), TERRY DEAN BARTLETT ('97-07)
 

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