SITI Company & STREB Extreme Action

We have wrapped up another school year, and another bold series of PEAK Performances! Last September, when STREB Extreme Action and SITI Company opened our season with the audacious FALLING & LOVING, we never could have imagined this world of isolation, loss, and uncertainty.

As we look ahead, let’s take inspiration from choreographer Elizabeth Streb who, in her art and in her life, approaches the unknown head-on, not with fear, but with wonder and courage.

Two titans of avant-garde performance—director Anne Bogart and choreographer Elizabeth Streb—join forces for the first time to take on works by Obie Award–winning rebel playwright Charles Mee in an original production co-produced by PEAK Performances. In FALLING & LOVING six actors from SITI Company and six dancers from STREB Extreme Action storm the stage and launch into the air with the aid of a Guck Machine, an enormous contraption conceived by Streb that features rings and buckets armed to continually release materials into the stratosphere. Artists, ideas, and objects collide in this radical new production.

Co-directed by Anne Bogart and Elizabeth Streb
Adapted from the plays of Charles Mee
Created and Performed by SITI Company & STREB Extreme Action
Costume design by James Schuette
Lighting design by Brian H Scott
Scenic design conceived by Elizabeth Streb
prototype by Matt McAdon
design and engineering by Peter Dean and Hudson Scenic Studios
Original Music and Sound Design by David Van Tieghem

Engage

Extreme: The Pop Action Performance Art of Elizabeth Streb
August 27th through September 29th, 2019
An exhibition | Segal Gallery
For more information visit montclair.edu/galleries
Standard Gallery hours are 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and 12:30 PM – 7:30 PM on Thursdays (closed on Sundays and Mondays).

Extended Gallery hours throughout the course of the performances:
Tuesday, September 24 (11:00 AM – 7:30 PM)
Wednesday, September 25 (11:00 AM – 7:30 PM)
Thursday, September 26 (12:30 PM – 7:30 PM)
Friday, September 27 (11:00 AM – 7:30 PM)
Saturday, September 28 (11:00 AM – 8:00 PM)
Sunday, September 29 (11:00 AM – 6:00 PM)

First Impressions
Saturday, September 28, 2019 – post-performance
Anne Bogart, Elizabeth Streb, Charles Mee
For more information, visit peakperfs.org/engage

Program

Amplify

Gia Kourlas, THE NEW YORK TIMES: “All the Ways to Fall for Dance This Autumn”
Mariya Dashkina Maddux in “Appalachian Spring,” which the Martha Graham Dance Company will present as part of the series PEAK Performances.

Robert Johnson, NJARTS.net: “Falling & Loving’ invents a new way to look at love”
In “Falling” —which received its uproarious premiere Sept. 24 as part of the PEAK Performances series at Montclair State University, and runs there through Sept. 29 — Cupid’s disheveled victims are drenched and blasted by artificial weather.

Elaine Molinaro, Montclair Local: Performance review: Captivating work of Bogart and Streb in ‘Falling and Loving’
Acrobatic dancers challenged gravity in Elizabeth Streb’s extreme action choreography and tragicomic actors from director Anne Bogart’s SITI company enlivened Charles Mee’s love sonnets in “Falling & Loving,” which opened PEAK Performances’ 2019-2020 season last week.

Credits

Co-produced by PEAK Performances @ Montclair State University | Alexander Kasser Theater. Development support provided by the Office of the Dean of Special Programs at Skidmore College and the New York State Council on the Arts. FALLING & LOVING was made possible by with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New England Foundation for the Arts–National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Programs in PEAK Performances’ 2019-20 season are made possible in part by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the New England Foundation for the Arts – National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.