Arts

Big and Bouncy
"The existence of a floor," Elizabeth Streb says over the phone from a tour stop in Kansas City, "is a problem." Coming from a choreographer -- and given that dancers do most of their work on floors -- that sentiment sounds a little odd. But then again, Streb isn't your average choreographer. Bouncing off panels and leaping off platforms to hit a trampoline 20 feet below, the performers in her Elizabeth Streb/Ringside company provide an audience with a spine-jolting array of jumping, flying and smacking-against-the-wall movement. The approach taken by Streb's New York-based group -- whose style is best described as coming from that place where action figures meet circus performers -- began as a reaction to what makes up much of contemporary dance ("All they're doing," Streb says mischievously, "is transferring weight from one foot to the other"). For Streb, concert dance had become too insular, too elite and too dull. So she, along with her eight-member company of intensely athletic dancers, created a new dance form she calls "pop action."

On Saturday, local audiences will get a chance to see just what pop action is all about. Those familiar with Streb's work will likely delight in the new pieces, which include dancers rotating around a pole in full mountain-climbing regalia and a selection of duets and trios on the trampolines. The performance will also include one non-pop action piece: "Little Ease," a 1985 Streb work that's set in a suspended box. Caught inside, Streb systematically thrashes against the box's boundaries, varying her position in response to her confinement. The result is something like a time-lapse film, and in "Little Ease"'s body slams it's possible to see the kernel of the pop action movement brewing.

While Streb has left behind the restrictions of contemporary dance, she does admire the architectural form of Merce Cunningham's work. And after surviving an evening of Ringside's daredeviling -- she solves her problem with floors by perching dancers on various riggings, from which they launch off, usually with a running start, to hit panels and stick in geometric shapes before slowly peeling off and making another pass -- the reason why becomes clear. Streb's choreography is more than random patterns of bodies; it's a heightened form of movement. It follows, then, that Streb's dancers don't just exit. Their movement is stopped, caught at the edge of a frame. Likewise, the occasional partnering doesn't tell a story. Instead, dancers collide and peel apart like bouncing atoms, circulating on a predestined pattern through space -- and only then returning to the floor.

-- Megan Halverson

Pop Action by Elizabeth Streb/Ringside plays Saturday, March 22, at the Cullen Theater, Wortham Center, 500 Texas, 227-1111.