Thrill seekers – get ready for what might be the most exhilarating ten minutes in your weekend. STREB Extreme Action Company will be performing today and tomorrow at Gansevoort Plaza, courtesy the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The Williamsburg-based performance company, headed by Elizabeth Streb, was commissioned by the Whitney to create a piece to celebrate the museum’s new building at the High Line.

Ascension, as the piece is titled, involves a ladder onto which nine performers hop from the adjacent staging as the ladder rotates at ferociously high speeds, accompanied by ear-splitting hypno-hop music.

The dare-devil performers carve out the space around the ladder, creating contrapuntal patterns in gravity-defying moves. The speed at which they – and the ladder – move is mind-bending. At one point, the whooshing sound made by the ladder outpaced the volume of the music. Don’t miss it!

Ascension, by STREB Extreme Action Company, will be performed today and tomorrow at 3 and 5 pm (weather permitting) at Gansevoort Plaza, at the intersection of Gansevoort, Little West 12^th Streets and 9^th Avenue. STREB will also be performing next week at the World Financial Center July 14-16^th as part of the River to River Festival – Information – and the company welcomes visitors to their rehearsal space in Williamsburg. Information. Photos: Peggy Roalf.

Ascension is a part of Whitney on Site: New Commissions Downtown, a project that has so far included a series of large-scale, commissioned works by Guyton\Walker, Tauba Auerbach, and Barbara Kruger on the site of the Whitney’s future downtown building in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. From the Whitney's press release: The commissioned projects, Whitney on Site: New Commissions Downtown, respond to the site’s dynamic urban context and herald plans to bring a downtown Whitney to the neighborhood. Other new works will be presented in the neighborhood during the next few years as construction progresses.