‘Falling Days’
— Andrew Sargus Klein
The first time I thought about the physical act of falling as something intentional, as something one must bring intention to, it was listening to my partner talk about dance. Falling isn’t gravity, at least not fully, and falling with intention isn’t only about safety. How you fall is as much a gesture as any other movement in a performance. This transcendent sequence in Pina Bausch’s iconic Café Mueller comes to mind.
In his essay at The Offing, titled ‘Falling Days,’ Thomas Dai takes the act of falling—as a metaphor for sin, as something one does over the edge of a cliff, as something to master in Wushu—and unravels it, over and over, so that the simple metaphor ceases to exist.
I don’t go jumping at the cliffs anymore, but I can never forget those days. That rush, it lingers. The way my chin would draw close to my chest in flight. The way all sound would abate, the water approaching my feet like a material period, a fermata. You don’t forget the feeling of that impact. You don’t forget the body penetrating blade-like through different layers and temperatures of water, caught up in the shape of its own falling. It was like being born, or never dying. It was like jumping from great height into very deep water and feeling surprised the body could feel this way, one moment so light and the next so solid. The limbs splay underwater. Bubbles detach in search parties from the mouth. The lungs, swollen like lobed balloons, pull you back up for air.
The pacing throughout the work is soft and even, letting the falls do the work of creating momentum and impact.
This is the image of falling I can’t shake, its purest phenomena, when being and nonbeing meet and switch places for a time. A man I do not know comes running up from behind me. He takes one leap over my head, spinning in midair to yell “fuck y’all” and give me the finger. There is no planning, no do-overs, no countdown at the edge. I hear a splash far below, and later, not much else.
This is searching essay that does an important service: It reasserts wonder in the mundane.