Created by Melanie Kloetzel as a guest artist for dance majors at the University of Calgary, Twice Told is based on A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Carmen Braden composed music for the work, which was performed live by Lacie Marchand and Victoria Orton. Excerpts of the work were restaged for the graduate saxophone recital of Lacie Marchand at the University of Calgary.
A site-adaptive exploration/workshop led by Melanie Kloetzel and Phil Smith (of Wrights & Sites) that explores publicly-accessible “hidden spaces” with an eye toward nurturing the self-world connection.
Through a workshop format (already taken place in Liverpool, Teignmouth, Exeter, and Plymouth, UK to date), Kloetzel and Smith examine the connections between inner reflection, subtle physical play and public space. A series of movement meditations aids participants in an examination of their interiorities through inherently active methodologies. Using as a premise the fact that our inner lives are under increasing scrutiny and surveillance, the collected meditations encourage participants to put down their phones and tablets to reclaim a healthy and active lifestyle, one that is highly integrated with and inspired by local environs.
Created by Melanie Kloetzel as a guest artist for dance majors at the University of Calgary, Tragedy, a sequel is based on Euripides’ The Trojan Women. The work smashes together contemporary electronica with an ancient text and fulsome physicality for a heart-wrenching and sombre look at the too-often unchanging role that women have been forced to play in society. Text devised by Melanie Kloetzel from Jean-Paul Sartre’s and Edith’s Hamilton’s versions of The Trojan Women.
Dwindling Dispute TKO, based on the stage work The Dwindling Dispute, is a site-adaptive work created for a square of artificial turf that may be unrolled at various sites. The work premiered at containR through the Fluid Festival in 2013 and was also performed in front of the Culver Center for the Arts in Riverside, California as part of the 2013 Congress on Research in Dance conference. Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, the Red and White Queens delight audiences with their ridiculous mannerisms and absurd clashes in short ‘acts’ that make audiences question ‘on-‘ and ‘off-‘ stage appearances. With support from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
A restaging of Act Two from The Alice Odyssey. In this absurd duet, based on the Red Queen/White Queen dialogue from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, the characters battle their way through a soup of nonsensical images and text to best their opponent. With support from The Banff Centre for the Arts and the University of Calgary. Presented at Dancers’ Studio West in Calgary as well as DUMBO Dance Festival in New York City, this stage work inspired the site work Dwindling Dispute TKO and the dance film The Dwindling Dispute.
kloetzel&co. and Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre presented an excerpt from The Alice Odyssey crafted for beautiful Withrow Park in Toronto, ON as part of the highly popular Dusk Dances. Deconstructing highly exaggerated facial expressions alongside a tale of Alice in the underworld, the work ran for six nights to crowds of 500-1,500 people per night and was called “well crafted and beautifully executed” in a review in Mooney on Theatre.
To hear an interview about this performance on EVIDance Radio on Toronto’s CUIT, visit https://www.evidanceradio.com/home/podcasts/2013/saturday-july-27-2013 and forward to timecode 5:20.
Commissioned in 2011 by the Horizons Concert Series in Flagstaff, AZ, kloetzel&co. in collaboration with clarinetist John Masserini created the evening-length Icarus Refried, a follow-up to the popular Icarus Fried. In this new version, the humorous tension of Kloetzel and Masserini’s on-stage repartee – fused with the compositions of Joan Tower, Olivier Messiaen, and Robert Cogan, as well as with poetry by Muriel Rukeyser, sculpture by Ben Alexander, and visual poetry by Derek Beaulieu – created an evening of upended myths and ironic invention. A documentary of this process, Icarus Refried: A Pro-Creative Process, was created by filmmaker Kurt Lancaster.
An excerpt from the evening called Fierce Indulgence went on to enjoy performances in Philadelphia as part of the Congress on Research in Dance conference.
kloetzel&co. presented a 10-minute live version of the popular dance film, The Sanitastics, created for the Calgary Skywalk system. With hygienic superheroes and an anthropological tour guide, The Sanitastics offered an amusing take on the sanitary nature of indoor public space. Presented by Performance Creation Canada and the Fluid Festival as part of a site-specific walking panel in Calgary, AB.
kloetzel&co. presented four sold-out evenings of The Alice Odyssey, a project supported by the Banff Centre for the Arts and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, at Dancers’ Studio West. Scampering through playful partnering, heavily exaggerated facial expressions, and daring exploits on mattresses and tables, The Alice Odyssey examines the bizarre and often violent maelstrom that lurks in children’s fantasy worlds, with a particular focus on Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. Think you know what’s down the rabbit hole? Think again.
From this work emerged the duet, The Dwindling Dispute, which went on to performances at the DUMBO Dance Festival in Brooklyn, NY, Dwindling Dispute TKO, which went on to performances at the Fluid Festival and the Culver Center in California, as well as the excerpt of The Alice Odyssey created for Dusk Dances in Toronto, ON.
In 2008, kloetzel&co. collaborated with Knowhere Productions, Inc. for a three-hour site-specific performance celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the small French-speaking town of Ponteix in Saskatchewan. Set in various sites around Ponteix including the Notre Dame Auvergne Cathedral.