Falling Again and Again

Abstract

Falling through Life and Dance aims to discuss falling “as a reassuring, creative and life-enhancing force” (p. 2) and to engage with gravity’s many possibilities in all its unexpectedness. It invites readers to join the author in an investigation of falling with a spirit of curiosity, intent, and reverence, while challenging the Western assumption that falling is a negative experience. In so doing, Emilyn Claid, the acclaimed experimental choreographer, academic, director, and psychotherapist, delivers a diverse range of ideas linked through the theme of falling. Her ethnographic approach draws together multiple voices. Claid has gathered experiences from dancers, artists, and writers that surprise, invigorate, upset, and inspire the reader’s understanding of falling. The perspectives in this book are so diverse that the book is difficult to describe. The book itself exemplifies the fact that there is no one way to think about falling. Reading Falling through Dance and Life is like falling again and again— physically, emotionally, and conceptually. The book treats subjects such as identity and risk as physical, social, and emotional falling. Claid analyzes the performance work My Sex, Our Dance (1986) created by Lloyd Newson and Nigel Charnock, alongside interviews with Lloyd Newson in the section titled “Sex in Crisis” (pp. 127–31). The book also covers ideas related to falling and accidental death in performance in the section “Sholiba” (p. 105). In the section “April 2020,” Claid describes the political changes in the UK, including COVID 19, in what begins to feel like a free fall into precarity (p. 96). Due to the broad range of topics and approaches to thinking and feeling falling, this book will appeal to students, researchers, and artists interested in movement, falling, and engagement with gravity. I found comfort in the familiar dance language in the book; however, Claid draws on the vast experience she has in performance to widen the accessibility of this book beyond dance. The language and tone move beyond Western theatrical