http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/arts/dance/review-fall-for-dance-streb-dada-masilo-farruquito-american-ballet-theater.html 2016-09-27 23:06:43 Review: Fall for Dance’s Sampler Platter of Extremes This festival’s opening night included a premiere by Elizabeth Streb and a charismatic performance by the flamenco dancer Farruquito. === As millions of people tuned into the presidential debate on Monday, at least a couple of thousand opted out, flocking to City Center for the opening night of The first act, Streb Extreme Action, may have offered a respite from following the political circus, or not, depending on your relationship to watching people hurl their bodies against wooden boards or test their balance on towering steel beams, which can be just as stressful. The artistic director of that Brooklyn “Airslice,” a Fall for Dance commission revisiting two of her pieces, featured a low, sloping platform against which four performers slammed and inverted their bodies in hazardous-looking (and sounding) ways, shouting commands like “double stack!” and, to cue a moment of cuddling, “spoon!” In the second section, the action migrated up onto a large rotating ladder, bodies swinging from, twisting around and teetering on its rungs. As a demonstration of human agility and an Instagram-able phenomenon — recording, uploading and hashtagging were encouraged — it worked. But the spectacle had too little soul. The night took a somber turn with “Spring,” a version of “The Rite of Spring” from the South African choreographer Frederick Ashton’s placid “Monotones II,” to Satie’s “Trois Gymnopédies,” is a ballet capable of coolly sparkling. But as The evening’s unequivocal highlight was the peerless flamenco dancer