Last weekend Ed and I took the L train to Williamsburg and experienced the extra-ordinary feats of STREB in a performance of “Into Thin Air” at the company’s home space, the Streb Lab for Action Mechanics on 51 North 1st Street.

STREB could be described as acrobats on a construction sight, or the gritty cousin of Cirque du Soleil. “Action Events”, as the program calls the performances, include “Air Splinter”, in which “diving from the truss without the customary foam pit mats, the performers meet gravity head-on”; and “Chaos Mass” featuring “a 22 foot I-Beam” becoming “an instrument of chaos”; and “Rebar Solo”, where long metal rebar pointing down like a pendulum, “swings and inscribes the air, mapping out pathways imprinted on the grid below” within the performers are interacting precariously.

For all the events performers exhibit grace, physical strength, agility and a “calculation of risk that must be executed with precision”. It’s daring and delighting, and very up close and personal in the STREB space in a manner comparable acrobatics with large set pieces in traditional circus tents or theatre spaces can’t replicate for in-your-face immediacy.

The company encourages sharing photography and videography, and so I did film portions of the final two action events, “Tip”, and “”Maverick Surf” to include here.