The Act of Balancing, Luuk and Lisa Scheers, 29 April 2017, Lisseuil/France
The writings below are based on: Hermans, C. (2021). A Sense of Balancing: Moving In-Between the Vertical and Horizontal Plane. Platform: Journal of Theatre and Performing Arts, 15(1), 144-153.
When we say ‘we are in balance’ or ‘we are off balance’, we often do not refer to our physical state but to our emotional and mental wellbeing. Balance is frequently associated with terms such as risk and power. We use it as a metaphor for politics, the financial world and social stratification. Despite the wider cultural use of the term balance, it is grounded in our bodies, based on embodied experiences of balance (Fuchs 1). According to Johnson, our embodied experience of balance serves as the grounding of any abstract understanding of what it means ‘to be in balance’ (in Núñez et al. 50). Balancing is an activity that we learn from very early on. It is a prerequisite of a whole range of movements such as rolling, crawling, sitting, standing, walking, running, cycling etc. In fact, all our daily movements are based on our sense of balance, although balance is strictly speaking not one sense but a cross-modal system that includes proprioception, the vestibular system, as well as our tactile, visual and hearing system. It is multisensory, as it requires the collaboration of different bodily systems. The sensation of balance is one that resides deep in our body. Balance is thus first and foremost an embodied experience. However, it is also used as a cultural expression to describe our mental condition and even the state of our world.
In my own artistic work, I explore the dynamics of balance through a range of basic movements such as jumping, falling, rolling, turning, running. According to Sheets-Johnstone such basic movements can be regarded as motivating forces that produce ‘a high, an elevated sense of aliveness, a delight in the kinetic dynamics that is underway’ (416). Movement itself is compelling, as it not only motivates us but also directs our attention. Even more, through physical play we learn ‘the vulnerabilities of being a body – our own vulnerabilities and the vulnerabilities of others in our movement interactions’ (Sheets-Johnstone 412). Through basic bodily movements, we come to know ourselves in a kinetic and kinesthetic way. With the camera I capture the basic movement repertoire of playing, as well as the more complex movements of professional dancers. I am interested in how affects, forces, and intensities can travel through different bodies and I use the camera to capture these transformational moments. I specifically choose photography and not video, since I am not interested in capturing the whole sequence of movements, but just fragments of it while still being able to follow the whole trajectory of movement.
According to Fuchs (2), balance is the ‘ability to control one’s own centre of gravity in relation to the support area in order to maintain an upright posture’. Its function is to control the body’s upright position in space. The organ of balance (the vestibular system) is vital for our sense of balance: it is located in the inner ear, and it is (almost metaphorically) referred to as the labyrinth, with hoses, liquids, pebbles and sensory hairs. Balance is a ‘musical sense’, its signals are transferred in the same area as auditive signals. Distance, direction, space, orientation, height and depth, and rhythm all play a role in balancing. Even more, balancing is a movement, even if we stand still for a minute on one leg. It is only through movement that we experience a sense of balancing. Balancing is therefore a dynamic act, as we continuously make context-dependent adjustments in order to maintain balance .Walking, for example, is of a dynamic act of balancing. From a biomechanical point of view, walking can be divided into four basic tasks: (1) ‘to support the body against gravity, (2) to redirect the body’s center mass in order to maintain forward motion, (3) to swing the leg forward, and (4) to maintain stability through balance control’ (Ijmker 11). Walking is, in a way, controlled falling: you fall forward and you catch yourself in your own fall. Balancing is intrinsically related to falling. To balance is to find the right momentum between falling and catching.
Two systems are at work in order to maintain balance: postural control and equilibrium control (the latter one is often conceived as part of postural control). Postural control is ‘the ability to maintain equilibrium by keeping or returning the centre of gravity over its base of support’ (Wallmann 436). Postural control is a flexible system that operates on an automatic and pre-reflective level. The postural control system has two functions: 1) to ensure that balance is maintained and 2) to provide a stable reference frame for perception an action (Massion 877). Equilibrium control consists of all the micro adjustments that are made to compensate for internal and external perturbations in order to keep balance (Ivanenko and Gurfinkel 1).
Balancing is a relational act. Balancing is to find equilibrium between self and environment. Our movements are connected to the movements of the earth, to the movements of our environment. The earth pulls on all the mass of your body, while your body exerts the same gravitational force on the Earth. We are in constant dialogue with the forces around us. Balancing can thus be seen as a process where we try to maintain our upright position in an everchanging world. Balance: orientation, control, stability, safety, power, authority, dominance, verticality, the upright position. Off balance: disorientation, confusion, loss, failure, instability, vertigo, dis-ease, unsettling, loss of control, dizziness.
Ann Cooper Allbright perceives the fall and being out of balance as the opening up of other possibilities, a state of becoming, a state where you become more-than, and where openings arise in the personal envelopes of singular bodies, where self, space and time and re-organized (Falling 40). For Cooper Allbright being off balance is a transitional state. It is a place of uncertainty. It is the suspension between two known points that ‘opens up multiple possibilities and different orientations’ (39). It is here, at this transitional point, where new meanings may emerge. In the act of unbalancing and regaining balance, we learn about the fragility of our own bodies. Each act of balance is an act of uncertainty, vulnerability and fragility. Indeed, we live in uncertain times with overpopulation, climate changes, social stratification, political instability and epidemic outbreaks. We, human beings, are losing balance more and more frequently. ‘Life and the world of human experiences are messy, complex, and rarely well balanced’ (Fuchs 8).
Life itself is a process of finding balance, losing balance and finding balance again. We jump, we fly, we fall, we land, and maybe we crash. It is in-between the jumping, the flying, the falling and landing that new potentialities arise, and where endings become beginnings.
References
Cooper Albright, Ann. ‘Dwelling in Possibility’. Taken By Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader.Eds. Ann Cooper Albright, and David Gere. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2003,257-267.
—. ‘Falling’. Performance Research 18.4 (2013): 36-41.
—. How to Land: Finding Ground in an Unstable World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Fremantle, Francesca. Luminous Emptiness: Understanding the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Boulder,Colorado: Shambhala Publications, 2001.
Fuchs, Dominik. ‘Dancing with Gravity—Why the Sense of Balance Is (the) Fundamental’.Behavioral Sciences 8.1 (2018): 7.
Ijmker, Trienke. Balance control in human walking: an energetic perspective. PhD Thesis.Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2015.
Ivanenko, Yury, and Victor Gurfinkel. ‘Human Posture Control’. Frontiers in Neuroscience 12(2018): 171.
Johnson, Mark. The Body in the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Massion, Jean. ‘Postural Control System’. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 4.6 (1994): 877-887.
Núñez, Rafael, Laurie Edwards, and João Matos. ‘Embodied cognition as grounding for situatedness and context in mathematics education’. Educational Studies in Mathematics 39 (1999): 45–65.
Reguli, Zdenko, Jan Šenkýř, and Michal Vít. ‘Questioning the Concept of General Falling Techniques (GFT)’. Proceedings of the 1st World Congress on Health and Martial Arts in Interdisciplinary Approach. Ed. Roman Kalina. Czestochowa, Poland: Archives of Budo. (2015), 63–67.
Sharrocks, Amy. ‘An Anatomy of Falling’. Performance Research 18.4 (2013): 48-55.
Sheets-Johnstone, Maxime. ‘Child’s Play: A Multidisciplinary Perspective’. Human Studies 26(2003): 409-430.
Steyerl, Hito. In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective. 2011. E-flux: Journal #24. 14 November 2020. < https://www.e-flux.com/journal/24/67860/in-free-fall-a-thoughtexperiment-on-vertical-perspective/>
Wallmann, Harvey. ‘Physical Matters: The Basics of Balance and Falls.’ Home Health Care Management Practice 21.6 (2009): 436-439.