Falling Queer— a dance score, and a movement practice
Falling Queer - Remai Modern, December 27, 2025. A durational solo in the Remai Modern Atrium. Falling Queer is a score KSAMB has been working on since 2022, exploring its possibilities in different environments and configurations.
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Why Queer?
The practice of Falling Queer began in a series of movement classes Miki created for Queer people in 2022. KSAMB embraced the practice, workshopping it over that winter. Much of our work challenges gender and social norms, and even though Kyle and most of the people who dance with us do not identify as Queer, what we do can be read as Queer.
The work, both performed and witnessed, has many resonances. For Miki, the simplicity and therefore accessibility of the action of getting down and then getting up again is key. But it is also an embodiment and metaphor for resilience, an essential quality for life in the face of oppression, prejudice, and alienation. While conceived in the context of transphobia, the human effort of getting up, time and again, is universal.
The practise invites contemplation by the slowing down, zooming in, and shifting of focus that it invokes. Its simplicity and repetitition lends itself to a contemplative practise, and the action is powerful, calling attention to our elemental, inescapable situation on earth, our relationship with gravity, and our condition of constantly falling and getting up again.
It is a safe way to experiment with the physicality of falling: controlled falling, adaptable to different abilities, deconstructing the fear of falling. The whole body does not have to be lowered and raised and one does not need to go all the way down to the ground to experience a fall. Even at its simplest and slowest, the physical practice is surprisingly rich, both meditation and workout. For dancers it becomes a continuous flow of release, redirecting, rising, and recycling of energy.
We continue to discover the potential of the practice as metaphor and social intervention. Sometimes it appears resigned, forlorn and exhausted, yet when performed with joy it becomes inviting and nourishing. Lying on the earth is a pleasurable release, getting up another small accomplishment. The practise can luxuriate in sensation, but it also has resonances of refugees, migrations, and houselessness. The encounters with actual unhoused people in the streets have been unsettling — a stimulus to action or at least pause.
In Ann Cooper Albright's How to Land, she begins with a discussion of how falling affects us all. "The physical act of losing one's balance very quickly accelerates into a metaphor for failure." But, she soon points out that, "One of the most important skills in contact improvisation is learning how to fall with pleasure and not fear, how to expand into the ground and not tense away from it. Indeed, falling as a practice of moving, from up to down, can provide us with an opportunity to play with the dynamics of balance as we focus our proprioception and learn the importance of channeling the vertical momentum of a fall into the horizontal expression of a roll."
In How to Land, Ann cites Sara Ahmed's Queer Phenomonology: "Moments of disorientation are vital." How our sense of ground can become shattered by changes in our lives. How this can give us a different slant on life, on how to orient while falling.
The rising up again was inspired by a committee on which Miki once served, developing an exhibit on the resilience of First Nations people. She was the only non-Indigenous person. The name chosen for the project was "Sasipenita", a Swampy Cree word meaning, approximately, "to get up again after you have been knocked down". The parallels were evident to Miki, as a Queer, transgender woman.
In Kimerer LaMothe’s seminal work, Why We Dance, she explores the primacy of movement, and therefore dance — a reversal of the foundations of philosophy and Western thought, with the conceptual trick of denying the dominion, and even the reality, of matter. A revolutionary stance against materialism — the underpinning of patriarchal colonialism’s commodification of the commons — her reasoning invites a feminist, anti-capitalist, Queer reading of dance, especially dance which survives and falls and continues to keep getting up.
Bibliography
The practice of Falling Queer began in a series of movement classes Miki created for Queer people in 2022. KSAMB embraced the practice, workshopping it over that winter. Much of our work challenges gender and social norms, and even though Kyle and most of the people who dance with us do not identify as Queer, what we do can be read as Queer.
The work, both performed and witnessed, has many resonances. For Miki, the simplicity and therefore accessibility of the action of getting down and then getting up again is key. But it is also an embodiment and metaphor for resilience, an essential quality for life in the face of oppression, prejudice, and alienation. While conceived in the context of transphobia, the human effort of getting up, time and again, is universal.
The practise invites contemplation by the slowing down, zooming in, and shifting of focus that it invokes. Its simplicity and repetitition lends itself to a contemplative practise, and the action is powerful, calling attention to our elemental, inescapable situation on earth, our relationship with gravity, and our condition of constantly falling and getting up again.
It is a safe way to experiment with the physicality of falling: controlled falling, adaptable to different abilities, deconstructing the fear of falling. The whole body does not have to be lowered and raised and one does not need to go all the way down to the ground to experience a fall. Even at its simplest and slowest, the physical practice is surprisingly rich, both meditation and workout. For dancers it becomes a continuous flow of release, redirecting, rising, and recycling of energy.
We continue to discover the potential of the practice as metaphor and social intervention. Sometimes it appears resigned, forlorn and exhausted, yet when performed with joy it becomes inviting and nourishing. Lying on the earth is a pleasurable release, getting up another small accomplishment. The practise can luxuriate in sensation, but it also has resonances of refugees, migrations, and houselessness. The encounters with actual unhoused people in the streets have been unsettling — a stimulus to action or at least pause.
In Ann Cooper Albright's How to Land, she begins with a discussion of how falling affects us all. "The physical act of losing one's balance very quickly accelerates into a metaphor for failure." But, she soon points out that, "One of the most important skills in contact improvisation is learning how to fall with pleasure and not fear, how to expand into the ground and not tense away from it. Indeed, falling as a practice of moving, from up to down, can provide us with an opportunity to play with the dynamics of balance as we focus our proprioception and learn the importance of channeling the vertical momentum of a fall into the horizontal expression of a roll."
In How to Land, Ann cites Sara Ahmed's Queer Phenomonology: "Moments of disorientation are vital." How our sense of ground can become shattered by changes in our lives. How this can give us a different slant on life, on how to orient while falling.
The rising up again was inspired by a committee on which Miki once served, developing an exhibit on the resilience of First Nations people. She was the only non-Indigenous person. The name chosen for the project was "Sasipenita", a Swampy Cree word meaning, approximately, "to get up again after you have been knocked down". The parallels were evident to Miki, as a Queer, transgender woman.
In Kimerer LaMothe’s seminal work, Why We Dance, she explores the primacy of movement, and therefore dance — a reversal of the foundations of philosophy and Western thought, with the conceptual trick of denying the dominion, and even the reality, of matter. A revolutionary stance against materialism — the underpinning of patriarchal colonialism’s commodification of the commons — her reasoning invites a feminist, anti-capitalist, Queer reading of dance, especially dance which survives and falls and continues to keep getting up.
Bibliography
Falling Queer Rambles, Barcelona, March 8, 2023, photo by Daria Morgendorffer
Performances of Falling Queer:
Falling Queer Remai Modern, 2025, Solo by Miki Mappin, Remai Modern, Saskatoon.
Falling Queer TO, 2025, Solo by Miki Mappin, Ontario Regional Contact Jam, National Ballet, Toronto.
Falling Queer CAF, 2024, duet by Kyle and Miki, Contemplative Arts Festival, Grosvenor United Church, Saskatoon.
Falling Queer TDoR, 2023, duet by Kyle and Miki, Trans Day of Remembrance, Saskatoon Public Library Theatre, Saskatoon.
Falling Queer Riversdale, 2023. Kyle Syverson, Miki Mappin, Laura Harris, Annika Lessing, Barry Trapp, Rawda Shawcat, Lauren Scruton, Taylor Telfur, and Chloe Hunchak, Saskatoon.
Falling Queer Amphitheatre, 2023, Kyle Syverson, Miki Mappin, Laura Harris, Rawda Shawcat, Lauren Scruton, Taylor Telfur, and Kunji Ikeda, Saskatoon.
Falling Queer l'Illa, Falling Queer Rambles, Falling Queer Portal de l'Angel, 2023, in Barcelona public and commercial spaces, Kyle Syverson, Miki Mappin, Aurora Valverde, Daniela Opazo, Ana Estrada Zúñiga, anonymous. Co-production with Aurora Valverde and Queering CI, Barcelona.
Falling Queer Broadway, 2023, Kyle Syverson, Miki Mappin, Laura Harris, Annika Lessing, Barry Trapp, Taylor Telfur, anonymous. Saskatoon
Falling Queer Remai Modern, 2025, Solo by Miki Mappin, Remai Modern, Saskatoon.
Falling Queer TO, 2025, Solo by Miki Mappin, Ontario Regional Contact Jam, National Ballet, Toronto.
Falling Queer CAF, 2024, duet by Kyle and Miki, Contemplative Arts Festival, Grosvenor United Church, Saskatoon.
Falling Queer TDoR, 2023, duet by Kyle and Miki, Trans Day of Remembrance, Saskatoon Public Library Theatre, Saskatoon.
Falling Queer Riversdale, 2023. Kyle Syverson, Miki Mappin, Laura Harris, Annika Lessing, Barry Trapp, Rawda Shawcat, Lauren Scruton, Taylor Telfur, and Chloe Hunchak, Saskatoon.
Falling Queer Amphitheatre, 2023, Kyle Syverson, Miki Mappin, Laura Harris, Rawda Shawcat, Lauren Scruton, Taylor Telfur, and Kunji Ikeda, Saskatoon.
Falling Queer l'Illa, Falling Queer Rambles, Falling Queer Portal de l'Angel, 2023, in Barcelona public and commercial spaces, Kyle Syverson, Miki Mappin, Aurora Valverde, Daniela Opazo, Ana Estrada Zúñiga, anonymous. Co-production with Aurora Valverde and Queering CI, Barcelona.
Falling Queer Broadway, 2023, Kyle Syverson, Miki Mappin, Laura Harris, Annika Lessing, Barry Trapp, Taylor Telfur, anonymous. Saskatoon
Falling Queer Rambles, Barcelona, March 8, 2023, photo by Daria Morgendorffer
Falling Queer — Taking post capitalist joy to the streets of Barcelona! March 2-13, 2023.
Kyle and Miki of KSAMB collaborated in a residency with Aurora Valverde's Queering CI program at ENEstudio Barcelona, to coincide with International Women's Day. With Aurora, we presented a workshop, "Cuerpxs del Postcapitalismo," exploring Contact Improvisation as a post-capitalist practice. Inspired by experiments and participation in March 7 and 8 rallies and actions, we danced three, one-hour performances: March 7 at L'illa Diagonal, March 8 up the Rambles, and March 13 down the Portal de l'Angel.
Kyle and Miki of KSAMB collaborated in a residency with Aurora Valverde's Queering CI program at ENEstudio Barcelona, to coincide with International Women's Day. With Aurora, we presented a workshop, "Cuerpxs del Postcapitalismo," exploring Contact Improvisation as a post-capitalist practice. Inspired by experiments and participation in March 7 and 8 rallies and actions, we danced three, one-hour performances: March 7 at L'illa Diagonal, March 8 up the Rambles, and March 13 down the Portal de l'Angel.