CIFF 38 Review: Born to Fly
My sixteenth and final movie of the 2014 Cleveland International Film Festival was a documentary/dance movie.
Born to Fly
Elizabeth Streb is a choreographer. She won a MacArthur Genius Grant, but even more impressively she's successfully run a dance troupe in the high intensity dance world of New York City since the late 1970s. However, you could argue that she's not running a dance troupe so much as a highly choreographed extreme spots discipline. Her dancers run headlong into walls, jump from great height to intentionally land in a way that generates maximum impact, and generally do things that look painful, or even insane, to the uninitiated. Streb calls her people "action heroes", and they pull off physical stunts that look just as improbable as anything Bruce Willis did in a Die Hard movie. Look, there's no way I can explain this adequately, so watch this.
Born to Fly follows Streb over her entire career arc and is utterly fascinating. For every segment with Streb explaining something or one of her dancers commenting there are two or three or more showing utterly compelling performances or rehearsals. Does anyone ever get hurt? They interview the one action hero who had a career ending injury.
During the movie Streb talks a lot about time and the moment. A more interesting question would be "where is the line between art and sport?" Is the NFL, which requires insane amounts of physical activity, art? Ballet requires incredibly physical skill, but most people would call that art. Most of us would say not, but here's Streb's troupe doing dances that just as much physical activity and performance. Are they doing art, or sport? This to me is an intriguing question that goes unasked, and certainly unanswered. No matter. This film is still 'EXCELLENT'.
Also, Streb was at the Q&A. Her aura is very intimidating, like being near someone who is slightly mentally off but whose sheer force of will is so strong that no one would ever dare mention it lest they be destroyed. I guess that's genius for you.
Born to Fly
Elizabeth Streb is a choreographer. She won a MacArthur Genius Grant, but even more impressively she's successfully run a dance troupe in the high intensity dance world of New York City since the late 1970s. However, you could argue that she's not running a dance troupe so much as a highly choreographed extreme spots discipline. Her dancers run headlong into walls, jump from great height to intentionally land in a way that generates maximum impact, and generally do things that look painful, or even insane, to the uninitiated. Streb calls her people "action heroes", and they pull off physical stunts that look just as improbable as anything Bruce Willis did in a Die Hard movie. Look, there's no way I can explain this adequately, so watch this.
Click to viewBorn to Fly follows Streb over her entire career arc and is utterly fascinating. For every segment with Streb explaining something or one of her dancers commenting there are two or three or more showing utterly compelling performances or rehearsals. Does anyone ever get hurt? They interview the one action hero who had a career ending injury.
During the movie Streb talks a lot about time and the moment. A more interesting question would be "where is the line between art and sport?" Is the NFL, which requires insane amounts of physical activity, art? Ballet requires incredibly physical skill, but most people would call that art. Most of us would say not, but here's Streb's troupe doing dances that just as much physical activity and performance. Are they doing art, or sport? This to me is an intriguing question that goes unasked, and certainly unanswered. No matter. This film is still 'EXCELLENT'.
Also, Streb was at the Q&A. Her aura is very intimidating, like being near someone who is slightly mentally off but whose sheer force of will is so strong that no one would ever dare mention it lest they be destroyed. I guess that's genius for you.