Falling Up -Taking Flight

A body is suspended in the action of falling, caught between ideals, impossible dreams and realities. Inspired in part by Aaron Siskinds photographic series The Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation, Falling Up is a collaboration between a performer and a rope winding mechanism; a continually twisting and tumbling solo for endless corde lisse where the challenge becomes trying to get back down.

  • Format: Conceived & performed by: Lindsey Butcher
  • Creative consultant: Matilda Leyser
  • Music: Daniel Weaver
  • Musicians: Stephen Chadwick (trumpet), Howard Jacobs
  • (clarinets & percussion)
  • Winch operator: Charlie Morrissey
  • Winch design & manufacture: Mike Barnett, Karris Engineering & Stage technologies
‘In the quietly bewitching Falling Up Butcher nestles upon a long loop of rope….she rolls and spirals with it, coiling it around her lithe sturdy body until you wonder which came first, rope or woman?’

Donald Hutera, The Times

‘An appealing rope act that cleverly triggers you into seeing a hammock, then a pole, then a ladder, then a beam in gymnastics only a very flexible one. An intriguing sight.’

Sarah Frater, Evening Standard