Clash: When Feet Start To Fly

Feeling each step you take. Feeling the ground beneath your feet.
It is gravity which holds us to the earth’s surface and if there would not be mother nature’s rules, we would basically float off into space.
However, there are people who seem to be able to defy the earth’s gravity as if it does not even exists.

“Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is not mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself.” (Havelock Ellis).
Without any doubt, ballet is one of the supreme disciplines in dancing. Being one of the most elegant yet effortless-looking dances that exist in the glorious world of dance performance, ballet is able to transform dreams into movements. To put it differently, it is like dreaming with your feet.
Moving effortlessly without showing the movement’s immense exertions. Each step, each turn of the dancer’s head and each arm movement has to be on point – up to the fingertips. Ballet demands a lot of body control, but also the ability to make it look so easy, so weightless, but the appearances can be deceptive…
“In a dancer, there is a reverence for such forgotten things as the miracle of the small beautiful bones and their delicate strength.” (Martha Graham).

Carlos Acosta is one of those ballet dancers who make you dream. You get lost in the moment when fully experiencing the dancer’s strength and elegance in his performances on stage. His aura paired with his immense presence make this incredibly talented male ballet dancer to one of the world’s most recognisable ballet heroes of our time.

image: Carlos Acosta At the Royal Ballet. Oberon Books London. Back cover.

When you see him performing on stage, the dancer is able to make you forget the world around you…you get lost in his movements. His muscular body becomes an instrument which carries emotions from the inside out. The pictures speak for themselves…gravity does not affect Carlos’ elegance and delicate dance moves.

image: Carlos Acosta At the Royal Ballet. Oberon Books London. p.55.

image: Carlos Acosta At the Royal Ballet. Oberon Books London. p.129.

The newly released book Carlos Acosta At the Royal Ballet documents Carlos Acosta’s impressive career. It “is a celebration of his phenomenal success and popularity with Royal Ballet audiences at Covent Garden and worldwide since 1998.” (Carlos Acosta At the Royal Ballet)
Carlos Acosta at The Royal Ballet is co-published by Oberon Books and The Royal Ballet.

image: Carlos Acosta At the Royal Ballet. Oberon Books London. Cover.

UPDATE: If you want to see Carlos Acosta in action, “Carlos Acosta: A Classical Farewell” might be right up your street! For his final UK tour Acosta will be performing excerpts from his favourite ballet repertoire with the help of a glorious live orchestra.
The show runs from 6 May to 7 May and takes place at the Birmingham Hippodrome.

Famous American rock climber Alex Honnold and female climber Jessa Younker are two other phenomenal athletes who prove that gravity is no limit. Again, natural laws are seemingly suspended…On top of that, both take climbing to the next level by solely using their pure body strength and absolute concentration without using ropes to secure them.

Alex Honnold. Photo by Jimmy Chin.

Jessa Younker’s deep water solos on Poda Island, Thailand. Photo by David Clifford.

Speaking of ropes, have you ever heard of rope acrobatics? Without any doubt, it is another way of tricking mother nature and her rules.
Only secured by two silk ropes floating in the air, these acrobats make flying possible. And yes, you are right, gravity does not seem to count…

Rope acrobatics. image by: Künstleragentur ARTgerecht Hamburg.