The Art of Falling

Ouch! That’s what Wei-An used to say. Now he flops around on the ground while singing silly songs instead. 

The focus of these classes is to develop comfort moving into the floor and back up again. This will be done through simple improvisation exercises, and also through the sharing of techniques that begin simple but can be grown into complex and acrobatic forms. The first class will focus on helping participants familiarise themselves with the sensation of falling, and techniques to enter the floor. In the second class, these ideas will be put together into a movement sequence. 

While the target group for the class is those with an existing movement practice and particularly those interested in acrobatic forms of dancing, all the exercises are adjustable for anyone to do at their own pace. 

This workshop is part of Multiplié Dance Festival 2026

About the artist

Wei-An’s practice of The Art of Falling is part navigation of space-time curvature, part happy accident. Growing up fidgety, Wei-An fell down a lot, and eventually, he figured out that falling down was both fun and a good way to not get hurt.
Today, he continues to explore falling for the pleasure it provides: a momentary sense of weightlessness, the thrill and speed of giving in to gravity, and the discovery of possible ways out of a tricky situation. It is a practice of going along rather than fighting what’s happening, of learning to trust skills honed by training, and keeping an eye out for the next fun ride out there. 

In 2024, he premiered his full-length solo, A Reason for Falling, which was inspired by the practice of freeriding. This work was commissioned by Esplanade — Theatres on the Bay (Singapore), and was supported by Dance Nucleus (Singapore), Rimbun Dahan (Malaysia), and DansiT (Norway).