Flying And Falling Into Possibility
Updated: Feb 23

Essay #2
(a)
Keywords: gravity, refinement, simplicity, dance, movement, revolution, standing, walking,
yes, childlike, bones, art, islands, rain, protocol, centre, equilibrium, activation,
kinaesthetic, intelligence [Ki], postmodernists, returning, falling, the floor, curve, spiral,
helix, nuance, ingenuity, negotiation, sensorial, suppression, resistance, flight & final.
Introduction
Context: I've adopted a writing style that lives comfortably in notes, sketches,
curiosities and collage. My background in dance compels me to write more
from that perspective. Of how art and the moving body interface with and
find language for the great adventure gravity posits. With particular
reference to postmodernist dance makers of the 1960’s and their return to
the most basic, essential, functional movements. I explore acts of returning
and falling as arts practice, through ideas, poetry, metaphor, physics,
movement, dance, Zero Balancing and consciousness. Where simplicity and
subtlety as conscious choices, hold value and service in ZB, art and life.
Closing the essay by introducing the Weber-Fechner Law (2) a field of
Psychophysics that reveals how small changes and differences can be
noticed, through refinements of sensory perception.
1
Yes Manifesto: a reference to Yvonne Rainer's No Manifesto 1965 (3)
Writing manifesto’s can be a useful way to get to the core of intentionality by setting out
terms and agreements. A manifesto can be a starting point for a creative process. Dogma
95, a Danish experimental film collective wrote their manifesto and I've been writing them
ever since.
Yes to simple
Yes to straight forward
Yes to less
Yes to less effort
Yes to what is essential
Yes to getting things done
Yes to no perfectionism
Yes to being a bit messy
Yes to finishing and completion
Yes to endings
And clean disconnects
knowing that also
endings are illusions
Yes to continuation
Yes to Gravity
to flying and falling
Yes to seeing things clearly
Yes to the imagined
to dreams
to things as they are
to knowing the difference
Yes to possibility
Yes to not knowing
Yes to containment
Yes as antidote to No
Yes to repetition
to repetition
Yes to notes
Yes to sketches
Yes to collage
Yes to chance
Yes to improvisation
Yes to the bare bones
2
#Gravity [is]
Isn’t gravity a marvel.
What a wondrous thing gravity is . . . . . . Gravity [is]
Gravity is an all pervasive force, fundamental to supporting life on our
planet. Gravity is Cosmic and Space [is]. Is it not the earth's gravitational
pull that keeps the moon in orbit and also stops earth's atmosphere from
drifting off into space. The Troposphere measures between 4 and 12 miles
high, a dense ground layer of gases, is where we live. Gravity of collision
and display, colour & light of the magnificent Aurora Borealis. Created
when charged particles of the sun meet with the earth's atmosphere and
are pulled by gravitational magnetic polar forces. Gravity is far out.
Gravity of ideas: return to curiosity (Gravity is in)
Is a return to things as they are
A return to simplicity
Just like a child in discovery, finding their fingers and toes
A beginners mind
Simple questions that are so close we cannot see
A return to that . . . to the curiosity and wonderment of the child
Was I ever that kind of child. I feel like I’m asking these questions for the
first time.
Moshe Feldenkrais asks: (4)
“Why do we have eyes’’
“Without light would we have eyes to see’’
“Without gravity would there be a need for a skeleton’’
Piercing and penetrating enquiry, like a thunderbolt that cuts through
illusion. Good honest questions. Appreciating things as they are.
The inherent qualities of ZB touch similarly have an objective clarity and
directness that are also:
“honest respectful non sentimental’’ Alan Hext (5)
3
Other Questions
What is a body
how did we get here
evolutional or accidental
What is sky
Where is up and down
Why clouds
What is rain
Lying on my back
in long summer grasses . . . looking up
I would perceive clouds
to be the undersides of islands
floating in the sea
of the sky
above me.
I would dream and imagine castles
cities and other worlds
floating in space
These worlds each with their own skies
exist
Many more layers of floating cloud islands
ascending into infinity
I lived in my imagination
in sleep
I dreamt of flying
Distinguishing what is real from the imagined wasn’t a consideration as a
child.
Distinguishing what is real from the imagined has been my consideration
for some time.
The interface and boundary between imagination and ordinariness
A push and pull of oppositional pairs.
ZB protocol and interface are a source of clarity and differentiation I keep
returning to.
4
Going down
Just as water vapour gases rise from earth's liquid surface (evaporation),
they are then returned in the form of water droplets falling from the sky
(condensation) we call this rain. Subject to the environmental causes and
conditions of the sun heating moisture found on leaves, plants, trees,
oceans, lakes and rivers, water vapours rise as gases. The higher the
vapours rise the cooler the air becomes and water droplets begin to form
into clouds. Becoming too heavy, they begin their fall back down to earth
(precipitation).
All of this happens in the field of Gravity
Haiku #1
Science of rain
Meteoric metaphoric
stormy weather
Haiku #2
A frog leaping
waxy leaves vibrate
relentless downfall
rain [is]
the miracle of rain
the Hallelujah of rain
rain waters crops
rain keeps us alive
rain as pain
the tears of rain
language and metaphor
rain comes down
being down
down in the dumps
raining on my parade
“It’s raining it’s pouring - enough is enough - I can't go on’’
(6) Streisand & Summer
5
Buddy Holly expressed through song a human experience so relatable. A
popular cultural inference of the weight, sorrow and gravity of rain:
‘The sun is out, the sky is blue,
There's not a cloud to spoil the view
But it's raining, raining in my heart’ (7)
Down is bad
Down hurts
Downplay
Falling down
Feeling down
Falling
Down to the ground
The floor is a hard surface
Falling is dangerous
The floor is dangerous
Fearing falling
Fearing failing
Standing up
At all costs
(b)
Up [is]
Up right
Up is Good
Up standing
Out standing
6
Going up
The Potter, the Infant and the ZB’er
An apprentice potter prepares and centres the clay, throwing a thousand
or so basic cylinders before they're able to replicate with accuracy a simple
form. Perfectly balanced, strong, shapely, functional and able to stand
alone .... In gravity.
The newborn child learns to stand through accomplishing a series of
motor sensory developmental tasks, front lying, lifting the head, kneeling,
crawling, shuffling, climbing, standing with an aid, repeatedly falling and
trying again. To then be able to stand alone with adequate strength,
balance, shape and functionality ... in gravity.
Similarly as an apprentice ZB’er, learning to stand on my own two feet I will
find my centre as a foundation for the work I do. I will keep returning to
that centre, to myself, the protocol, to hands, bodies, attention, breath, the
practice, not knowing, in a continuity of learning, embodying skills and a
deepening kinaesthetic intelligence ... in gravity.
Through trial and error, these skills become second nature, fully embodied,
allowing for the creation of more elaborate forms but we must first
accomplish these most basic of tasks. An accumulation and synthesis of
countless hours of practical, developmental, imaginative, theoretical and
reflexive learning. Returning to the simple form, it's all there, in the
foundations and at the core.
(c)
7
Coming back down
The Gravity Of Return
What is our relationship
to the floor
We are gravitational Beings. Our ability to lift ourselves up, appropriating
gravity into forward action ‘kinetic creativity’ is our lifetimes work. In death
and decay too, perhaps our final bodied return and fall to the floor . . . in
gravity. As instinctive and habitual standing and walking are, always
returning to what we know has it’s limitations and down-falls. Unconscious
and neglectful of our bodies, life ought not be lived solely in acts of
resisting gravity and linear verticality. Our bodies are more than vehicles
in service to brain powered intellects.
Dance and body centred practitioners serve to remind us about that.
Returning to the body with curiosity, imagination, playfulness, rigour and
discipline are some of the things dancers do.
“Dancing also nourishes
the matrix of small movements
the push and pull
in relation to the earth that we are
earth born creatures
who dream of space’’
Kimere, L Lamothe (8)
Two dance innovators of great renown and influence are Martha Graham
and Steve Paxton. Born in different era’s 45 years apart with their own
unique voices and sensibilities, both experimented, explored movement
potentials and developed methodologies that shifted consciousness into
new territories.
8
Martha Graham
Martha Graham became a revolutionary of American Modern Dance
whose legacy endures the changing nature of new movements and
reimaginings of 21st Century Dance.
Feminism and dance: The classical idiom and establishment defined a foot
bound femininity, long limbed, graceful, poised and lighter than air.
Graham on the other hand depicted women as powerful, courageous and
pioneering, in dance works that explored Great historical and mythological
female figures. (9)
Emily Dickenson
Joan Of Arc
Clytemnestra and more
Astonishing: Martha Graham Choreographed 180 dance works in her
lifetime.
Martha Graham's deeply grounded relationship with the floor, the pelvis
and a method of harnessing embodied contraction and release, began a
new and radical relationship to the floor through acts of falling.
primal
intense
forceful
expressive
emotional & earthy
9
New negotiations with gravity
Acts of falling
Challenging audiences
perceptions of beauty
and what dance [is]
“Graham’s falling
was not a falling
into collapse
but a falling
into possibility
The drama of the descent
backwards
into the unknown
and the joy of the return’’
(10a) Ellen Graff
Martha ‘trends’ with an inspired Google Gif (d)

“My dancers fall so they may rise’’ Ellen Graff quotes Martha Graham (10b)
10
Steve Paxton
Meeting in an old church basement
Early 1960’s, Greenwich Village New York
The Judson Church Dance Theatre
A cross disciplinary Arts collective
Redefined what dance is or can be
Deconstructing elitist dance forms
into everyday movements and gestures
A beckoning age of postmodernism
Steve Paxton was a part of all that (11)
And part of their negotiation of what dance is, can be seen as a rejection
of virtuosity and abstract expressionism in favour of those everyday
pedestrian movements. Walking, standing, running, crouching, movement
stripped down to the essential bare bones. Paxton and the postmodernists
“deconstructed and democratised dance” (12) focussing on the inherent
forms all humans do, placing trained and untrained dancers together in
performative situations.
Yvonne Rainer Choreographed Trio A (13) in 1966 and captures the zeitgeist,
in what Paxton calls ‘’personal incidents and pedestrian forms’’ (14)
Evolving, Innovating how two bodies/dancers can move in relation to each
other and the floor in constant awareness of gravity. The spontaneous
mercurial nature with constantly changing forms & fulcrums, points of
contact, a headstand, a handstand, bending backwards, trusting, feeling,
flying, collapsing, invites & encounters.
11
Contact Improvisation
a fluid basis for two
2 moving bodies
Incorporating
the giving and receiving
of weight exchange
reflexes
innate empathy
Awareness
Steve Paxton's falling, his use of the floor and gravity has it’s origins in the
Japanese Martial form of the Aikido roll, “a diagonal stretch across the
back, presenting curves and extending into the floor’’ (15a) and (15b)
“There's so much information in falling in rolling
I needed
to tell people
how to fall down at speed
dive_ing
into the floor’’
Offering bridges through contact improvisation linking to other forms like
martial arts. Ideas of a third entity, often referenced in contact improv
circles. A synergy arising out of the contact of two or more moving bodies.
“A third entity is the form, the movement, the flow’’ (15c) Steve Paxton
Zero Balancing is dance, a duet with it’s own methodology and criteria.
Curious about a third entity, perhaps in the minutiae of small movements.
Quiet synergy, unspoken, cocreating, spontaneous, unfolding, breaths,
tensions, looseness, play, improvisational, donkeys leaning, riders riding.
12
On reflection perhaps my hunger to become a dancer
was fuelled by a deeper drive
to continue my movement development
An arrested development
Sitting in chairs
Oppressive system of schooling
Built environments
ParKour (16) an urban movement form had yet to be invented.
moving to learn
learning to move
(17) Steve Paxton reflects and articulates:
‘’Essentially to do what babies do when they begin to move
a hunger into what movement is and can be
I think it provides a service to keep the search alive
in a culture that has engineered an environment
requiring physical and sensoral suppression
to exist in
I think dancers are trying to complete a physicality
that gets messed up by the 12 years in school
.... or longer’’
Later still Paxton developed Material For The Spine from observing
contact improvisation. In ‘MFTS’, articulating the spine as an extra limb - in
partnership with the pelvis - became instruments of initiation and
movement potentials.
13
‘’Two spirals making a helix
the shape of DNA
that's what we are
a twisted helix
Twisting is how we walk
twisting and retwisting
[is] walking
running
It's an incredible form’’
(18a) Steve Paxton
A voice of guidance and sanity, no wonder the pervasiveness of distraction
and dis_ease within the dazzling artifice and advancements of culture.
“We’ve created a world where
we've become more neon than nuance
Food is advertised rather than hunted for
Entertainment becomes divorced from ingenuity’’ (18b)
Perhaps our first fall, into being born, is as Paxton suggests not the
beginning of life but the start of a new relationship in a new environment:
“Birth is not so much a beginning
as it is an abrupt change
in which suddenly there are different factors
than those in the womb
and there is gravity
With gravity
a new negotiation begins
and these terms condition us
for the rest of our lives’’
(18c)
14
Walking
Etymologically speaking, walking has it’s origin in the Olde
English/Germanic word Wealcan, meaning to roll, toss and wander. (19)
Fun facts about walking: the gait cycle (20)
Walking is a collaborative effort between the feet, knees and hips.
Walking involves kinetic energy, friction, propulsion, weight exchange,
leaning, vaulting, standing, swinging, rolling & balancing in a cycle called
the Gait
There is so much moving in walking
There is always one foot in contact with the floor at any one time.
For a brief moment there are two feet in contact with the floor at the same
time.
Walking to get somewhere
Going nowhere at all walking
A moderately active person takes on average 7,500 steps a day
216,262,500 steps may have been taken over a lifetime of 80 yrs.
Walking is a meditation.
Walking as performance
Walking mindlessly
Walking is something we can do alone or with others.
Walking as activism, a protest, a march, a procession
A Peace Walk
Humans walk upright on two feet
We can walk forwards, backwards, side to side, on diagonals, around in
circles.
There is no right or wrong way to walk
There are right and wrong ways to walk
15
Slide Waddle
Limp Crawl Prance
Amble Stagger hobble Tear
Trek Lurch Stroll Mooch Scuttle Lunge Creep
Lollop Hop Prowl Glide Tiptoe
Saunter
Stride Strut Sprint Skip Dart
Slip Stalk Pad Paddle Sneak Scamper
Sashay Wade Scurry Rush
Stumble Meander Scramble
March Trip
Fritz Smith
Explains how the first and deepest level of energy in the body arise from
walking. The motion and pressures of the feet, which translate through the
entirety of our skeletal system both structurally and energetically. This
happens in relation to the floor whilst walking, the lines of tension passing
through our ‘centre of gravity’ that travel diagonally in figures of eight from
each foot to its opposite shoulder.
“In walking
these diagonal vectors
are converted
into complicated
figure of eight
spiral patterns’’
(21)
16
Through the complex structures of the feet, our walking and sense of being
and balance adapt to changes in the floors surface. Whether we’re walking
uphill on a rocky steep slope, playing ball on a soft sandy beach or on the
moving surface of an airport conveyor the common ground is gravity and
how our bodies intelligently adapt to it.
As a client leaves the table to meet the floor, they are encouraged to
integrate the session by walking and helping them to return to an everyday
sense.
Entrances and exits
Perceiving information and honing observational skills. Meeting a client
where they are, as they are whilst remaining discreet and at interface.
When someone walks, what do you see. What can walking tell us about
structure. Of how the bodymind is organising, functioning and including
states of emotion, spirit, psyche . . . in gravity.
How someone enters and exits
The room . . . a ZB session . . . visible clues [information]
how the body functions in gravity
where is the weight
are they in a hurry
Is their rise & fall
stuck in rising . . . or falling
Is there collapse . . . is there hesitation
fragility . . . or robustness
A sense of freeze . . . Isolated parts
Overcompensating areas
Is there balance . . . equilibrium
Does the whole body . . . come into play
17
Islands Of Equilibrium
Our mid point is the most commonly known of the three primary centres of
gravity in the human body.
In ZB protocol we address the three primary gravity centres of the pelvic,
chest and head regions equally.
The feet are where we usually begin and end a session
introducing opening and closing half moon vectors
allowing the client to feel themselves fully
from head to toe as a unified whole.
“seating someone back
into themselves’’
Alan Hext (22a)
Whilst lying on our back
A structural and psychological shift
from verticality with weight and charge descending down into the feet. Now
spreading & dispersing largely to the mass of the pelvis, rib cage and
head. It’s interesting to me how a lying down position offers an optimal
place and potential to address these three primary, structural and
energetic centers.
18
As Alan Hext points out in his book The Structural Energetics Of Zero
Balancing (22b)
“Returning a client
back to their centres
of gravity and feeling
of wholeness and completeness
Is part of the efficiency
and grace of ZB
in its ability