En savoir plus
Table des matières
1. Introduction
Structure and Content
Falling-through Dance
A Practice of Falling
Conceptual Falls
The Contextual Fabric
Back Stories
2. Falling Apart
3. Falling Out
4. Falling Away
5. Falling About
References
A propos de l'auteur
Emilyn Claid’s career stretches back to the 1960s when she was a ballet dancer with the National Ballet of Canada and the 1970s when she was co-founder of X6 Dance Space in London. In the 1980s she was artistic director of Extemporary Dance Theatre and in the 1990 worked as an independent dance artist. Emilyn has made choreographies for companies such as Phoenix Dance Company and CandoCo Dance Company, and has led choreographic research projects in Auckland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Berlin, Helsinki and Beirut. In 1997 she was awarded a PhD and published a book, Yes? No! Maybe… (2006). Since 2003 Emilyn worked as a professor at Dartington College of Arts and at University of Roehampton. In 2020 she resigned from the arena of academia to continue her free-lance career as dance artist, educator and psychotherapist.
Résumé
This is a book about falling as a means of reconfiguring our relationship with living and dying. Dancer, choreographer, educator and therapist Emilyn Claid draws inspiration from her personal and professional experiences to explore alternative approaches to being present in the world. Contemporary movement based performers ground their practices in understanding the interplay of gravity and the body. Somatic intentional falling provides them a creative resource for developing both self and environmental support. The physical, metaphorical and psychological impact of these practices informs the theories and perspectives presented in this book.
As falling can be dangerous and painful, encouraging people to do so willingly might be considered a provocative premise. Western culture generally resists falling because it provokes fear and represents failure. Out of this tension a paradox emerges: falling, we are both powerless subjects and agents of change, a dynamic distinction that enlivens discussions throughout the writing.
Emilyn engages with different dance genres, live performance and therapeutic interactions to form her ideas and interlaces her arguments with issues of gender and race. She describes how surrender to gravity can transform our perceptions and facilitate ways of being that are relational and life enhancing. Woven throughout, autobiographical, poetic, philosophical, descriptive and theoretical voices combine to question the fixation of Western culture on uprightness and supremacy. A simple act of falling builds momentum through eclectic discussions, uncovering connections to shame, laughter, trauma, ageing and the thrill of release.
Préface
This book reconsiders falling through dance performance and somatic movement practices, as a way of seeing, living and being present and as a creative source for being alive.
Texte suppl.
This honest and thought-provoking book portrays Emilyn’s lived experiences as a dancer, choreographer, academic and psychotherapist interweaving vivid descriptions of dance with moving personal experiences. The practical exercises which illumine her approach to falling are interspersed with themes including ageing and dying, diversity and inclusion and support and shame. We are encouraged to explore our embodied relationships and experiences of falling physically, psychologically and metaphorically as a resource for building resilience, living with uncertainty and as a source of vitality and presence.
