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Kaleider’s 2024 Tour of Arch In Pictures

by Kaleider

17/10/2024

Arch is an attempt to build a freestanding arch, made two thirds of concrete and one third of ice.

Deceptive in its simplicity, Arch unfolds as a surprising emotional journey. An exquisite combination of breath, heart, and muscle entangle with the perpetual inevitability of collapse.


Touching audiences with themes of death, renewal, and hope, Arch points towards the extraordinary, yet flawed, systems humans create: language, economies, architectures, democracies – and, inevitably, to the impact of these systems on our ecological system, and on ourselves.

Known for building temporary communities in his work, Director Seth Honnor creates a world of human endeavour, hope, and loss. Arch gathers our minds and hearts, inviting us to bear witness to something we cannot command. Like in Seth’s other work, Arch gently asks questions of all of us, of our roles and our responsibilities.

A languageless score by Verity Standen accompanies a relentlessly physical performance; at times meditative, and at others arresting and highly charged. At several moments during the performance, Secret Singers within the audience join the core singers’ voices, swelling the attention and passion focused on the task.  

This picture blog shares the journey of Arch’s inaugural tour in 2024. 



Outdoors at night. Two people drag and push a fire burning in an oil drum under a freestanding arch, about 2 metres tall and 4 metres wide, made out of concrete and ice blocks. The fire is smoking and the people are silhouetted against it.©Kaleider

The world premiere took place at Viva Cité in Sotteville-les-Rouen, France. 



Daytime, outdoors. A grassy courtyard surrounded by apartment buildings seen from above. In the centre of the space lights and prop pieces are set up before show time. Rows of seating await an audience.©Kaleider

Setting up on day one in Sotteville-les-Rouen. The first site was a gently sloped, grassy square surrounded by apartment buildings. Audiences watched the performance standing and sitting around the stage area. Residents in the buildings watched from their windows or porches, silhouetted against the light of their homes. 



A grassy courtyard at night surrounded by apartment buildings seen from above. In the centre of the space lights point towards an arch being built by two people, as one person sings and watches them. Rows and rows of audience are seated and standing around, watching them.©Kaleider

Performing outdoors means rooting the work in the place that it is, managing in all that is real around it, in the hope that it resonates with the audible and physical environment. 

This includes the changing light as day moves into night, drawing the audiences’ focus in. The show starts at sunset, and the performers come and go between the performance space and the audience, as if still setting up, making the exact beginning indiscernible. 



Outdoors at night, an arch made two thirds from concrete blocks and one third of ice blocks stands over a fire, which burns in an oil drum below it. The arch is lit by a pool of electric light, on the edge of the light, 6 singers stand watching and singing. ©Kaleider

The beginning and ending of the performance is also marked by song. In Rouen, 6 singers – Aminita Francis, Ellian Showering, Kate Huggett, Kate Smith, Miryam Solomon, and Verity Standen – sang Verity’s original and exquisite composition continuously. At times, they were joined by Secret Singers from amongst the audience. 



Audiences hold up mobile phones to take photographs. They are silhouetted against a bright arch on green grass, with a fire under it, smoke rising. This arch is the subject of their photographs, apparent on the lit screens of their phones. . ©Kaleider

As the ice melted and the fire burned, smoke amplified the physical scale of the installation, drifting up in the lights between the surrounding buildings.



Daytime, outdoors. Six performers stand in the performance space as they prepare for the show in central Bristol.©Kaleider

On to Mayfest and our first U.K. presentation. Musical Director Verity and Director and Creator Seth prepare with the cast in central Bristol. Singer David Ridley joined Ellian, Kate, and Aminita. 

At Mayfest, Arch took place in a fenced area on Museum Square, next to M Shed and the Floating Harbour. 



Night-time, outdoors. A fenced in performance of Arch in Bristol city centre. Audience are watching both inside and outside the fence. The harbourside, buildings and night city lights surround the scene.©Kaleider

The ticketed audience watched from picnic benches and beanbags, while passersby caught sight of Arch through the fences. Many of these incidental onlookers ended up staying for hours into the night, even in the rain. This was incredibly special for us – to think that people on their way to other places and with other plans were captivated by Arch, and chose to stay with it. A reminder of one of the key values of performing in public space, despite the huge logistical challenges it poses. 



Evening, outdoors. One of the performers in Arch, stands amongst the audience, singing.©Kaleider

Prior to each performance, we recruit and work with local volunteer "Secret Singers". There are moments during the performance where they join our singers, blurring the boundaries between performers and witnesses. Kaleider and Verity have a strong following in Bristol, as does Mayfest – and for Kaleider, it is as close to a home gig as they come. So we had an incredible response to our call for Secret Singers. We loved meeting and singing with them in the performance. Here Ellian leads their group. 



Evening, outdoors. A performer in arch, stands among the audience and sings, her eyes closed and her eyebrows raised in concentration.©Kaleider

Aminita sings amongst the audience with Secret Singers. Each singer leads a group in a different harmony, which interweaves with the others.



Ice and concrete blocks lie strewn on the ground outdoors at dusk. Three people stand behind them, talking and pointing, silhouetted against the fading evening light.©Kaleider

Next stop. On the first night in Bern, Switzerland, a new ritual of sorts was born. After the fall, once the last notes of song had died out, there was a moment of absolute silence. As the audience stirred and the murmur of voices grew, people began approaching the remains of the blocks and fire. Dozens stood and crouched around the blocks, talking to each other, touching the ice and warming their hands by the remains of the fire.



A grassy outdoor space surrounded by trees. The arch, made out of concrete and ice blocks, stands over a roaring fire. To the left, a performer is singing to the arch.©Kaleider

Ellian sings the final notes as the fire burns and the ice melts.



Daytime on a vast beach. A sole figure stands on an empty beach beyond empty wooden bleachers. Sea and blue sky on the horizon.©Kaleider

First look at the site at Oerol Festival, on Terschelling, one of the beautiful Wadden islands in the Netherlands. 



A beach, outdoors at night. A fire is burning under a freestanding arch made two thirds out of concrete blocks and on third of ice blocks. The sea and wispy clouds in the pink sky form the backdrop.©Kaleider

The landscape at Oerol was breathtaking. To have such a vast view of the sky and the sea meant that the colours and conditions were radically different every show. From big open skies to trailing clouds, from relentless, otherwordly winds to peaceful, silent calm – the fire and ice, as well as our breath and muscles, were constantly shaped by the environment's liveliness.

On the first night, both the sun and a crescent moon set in a clear sky behind the arch – our arch a far away echo of the moon's bright arc. 



Evening, outdoors. A dedicated crowd wrapped in blankets and waterproofs watch intently.©Barney Witts, Fluxx Films

Audiences bundled up against the rain and wind coming in off the sea. 



Outdoors on a flooded beach. The setting sun is almost at the horizon where the sea meets the sky. A performer places an ice block on the existing stack around the former.©Barney Witts, Fluxx Films

Halfway through Oerol there was a storm, which flooded the beach, forcing us to cancel one of the shows. Luckily we were able to get back to performing again the very next day. There was still enough water pooled on the beach to reflect the setting sun. 



Outdoors, daytime. A vast beach and a vast sky with clouds drifting across it. There are no people. The preset performance area shows how the wind affects the movement of sand around the blocks overnight.©Kaleider

The wind continued to play its part too, drifting the sand up against our blocks each day, so that we had to lift them out of the landscape in each show. 



A beach, outdoors at night. A fire is burning under a freestanding arch made two thirds of concrete blocks and one third of ice blocks. An audience of hundreds of people watch on, wrapped in blankets. Performers face the arch, singing.©Nichon Glerum

We never know how long the arch will take to fall. The Oerol audiences sat vigil with us into the night, sometimes in the cold and wet, attentively waiting for the collapse.




Outdoors on a vast beach. It’s a windy day. Two people sit on the set in conversation while a videographer films them talking.©Kaleider

Barney Witts  from Fluxx Films is making a film with us to document our journey, filming us as we go. In this shot, producers Jocelyn Mills and Katie Keeler discussed an audience member's reading of Arch as a metaphor for ageing and death. We, like the arch, change so slowly that it's nearly imperceptible – yet that change is also utterly present, constant, and inescapable.



Outdoors on a beach. The collapsed arch and fallen oil barrel with the fire still burning sit in front of the sea and dusky sky. Smoke and long shadows add to the mood.©Sabine Pater

We've never presented a work where so many of our audience send us their photos afterwards. It's very special. This is one of our favourites, from Sabine Pater, the Artistic Director of Oerol. 



Outdoors on a beach in the dawn light. A performer is seen standing framed by the arch of concrete and ice. A fire burns brightly in an oil barrel beneath it.©Barney Whitts, Fluxx Films

The final show at Oerol will stay with us. Having finished the previous show just a few hours earlier, we began building our last arch on Terschelling at 4:30 in the morning, just in time for sunrise. We – audiences and performers – stood vigil together, watching the ice melt as the sky slowly filled with light.



Outside at dusk, to the right the arch is nearly completely constructed. A performer stands in front of it on a low step to reach the higher part of the arch. To the left three performers, two standing and one seated with a cello, look towards the arch, singing and playing. Beyond them a bank of audience look on, underneath a darkening clear sky. ©Frank Emmers - Theatre Op de Markt

In Hasselt, Belgium, cellist Sarah Moody accompanied Ellian and Verity’s voices. 



Daytime outside. An urban square is surrounded by buildings including an ornate minster with three large arched windows. In the foreground a wooden arch former stands. around the former performers rehearse, standing. Beyond them, some seated public watch the rehearsal. ©Kaleider

Hull, UK. Seth directs the cast, who are joined by singer Phil King.



Outside at night. An audience surrounds a performance space, bathed in light. An arch is complete, supported by a wooden former. Performers stand singing to it. ©Kaleider

Wherever we site Arch, it references the context around it, whether there are buildings or not. And sometimes with very direct particularity, like here in Hull, where it echoed the minster. 



Outside at night. Two performers lay ice blocks on top of each other in the early stages of the construction of an arch. In the background performers stand and sing. ©Malte Bülow

In Aarhus Festuge, Denmark, Arch was presented within a light festival for the first time. 
A combination of natural and artificial light intertwine to create the visual world of Arch. The performance starts at dusk, so the sunset marks the beginning of the work. Throughout, the lighting – designed by Lighting Designer & Performer Nao Nagai – moves slowly through different poetic moments, reflecting the pace of the song and labour.

Ultimately, as the arch stands, the light of the fire reflects on the ice, rendering the melting visible; and, of course, eventually brings about its collapse. 




From amongst a watching audience, a performer sings, the light catching the contours of their face, their eyes closed and eyebrows raised in expressive concentration. ©Malte Bülow

Verity sings amongst the Secret Singers and watching audience.


Outside at night. In the foreground audience are silhouetted, some holding up phones, with lit screens, to photograph the performance. A performer fires a fire extinguisher at a completed arch of concrete and ice, creating clouds of vapour which catches the light. Beyond, audiences watch on, silhouetted against the lights of the city behind them. ©Malte Bülow

In Aarhus, the square in which Arch was presented was very public by day and night, with buses coming and going, and busy roads on three sides. The buildings held the singing sweetly despite the traffic noise and occasional siren. Many people, alighting the bus and on their way somewhere else, stayed and watched.



Outside at night. The arch of concrete and ice falls into the fire. In the foreground a curl of concrete blocks falls to the ground, hitting a barrel of fire at its base, which in turn is being crushed by a pillar of ice blocks falling onto it. In the background people watch, silhouetted against the lights of the city. ©Malte Bülow

For four nights the arch rose and fell in the centre of Aarhus. 



6 performers perform on a large stage, building a freestanding arch and singing. They are lit by the lights of the theatre, which casts shadows across the stage and onto a large brick wall of the back of the theatre. In the foreground are the first rows of audience watching from the auditorium. ©Barney Witts - Fluxx Films

In Burlington, Vermont, we presented Arch for the first time indoors at The Flynn. The stage and auditorium gave it a different frame to outdoor public spaces. Jay Wahl, Executive Director of The Flynn, describes his decision to present Arch in the theatre and on a mountain as a diptych; both public spaces, both confronting audiences with real fire, ice, gravity, and voice. 



A stage, lit by electric light. Two performers, attentive to their task, remove a wooden former under an arch made two thirds of concrete blocks and one third of ice blocks. A fire burns in an oil barrel to the right of them. ©Luke Awtry

Seth and Nao remove the former to reveal the freestanding Arch. 



An auditorium with ornate walls, several rows of audience in the stalls, and, beyond, a stage. On stage 6 performers, lit in electric light, stand and watch as a fire burns under a freestanding arch made two thirds of concrete blocks and one third of ice blocks. Beams of light catch the smoke from the fire. ©Barney Witts - Fluxx Films

Arch presented as a contemporary installation opera on The Flynn’s main stage, Burlington, Vermont. 



Many people sit on the ground on chairs and picnic blankets, all facing from left to right, half of them caught in the remains of the setting sun. Behind them autumnal trees catch the evening sun.©Luke Awtry 

The audience gathers to witness the final performance of the 2024 tour of Arch, on top of Mount Philo in Vermont. 



Outside. An audience and the overhanging leaves of a tree are silhouetted against the setting sun. They are watching 6 performers who are standing around a completed, freestanding arch made two thirds of concrete blocks and one third of ice blocks. Beyond, the round, orange sun is setting over a blue mountain range. at the base of the mountains is a lake, which reflects the light of the sky. ©Barney Witts - Fluxx Films

Nao Nagai and Irene Urrutia complete the Arch as the sun sets over the Adirondack Mountains. 



Outside at night, green grass surrounded by trees is lit with electric light. An audience watches 6 performers standing and watching a freestanding arch, made two thirds of concrete blocks and one third of ice blocks. An oil drum of fire burns under the arch. The sky has the last remaining light of the already set sun. ©Barney Witts - Fluxx Films

This arch stood a while, as Aminita, Phil, Ellian, and Kate sang, and Nao and Irene stood vigil. The audience stayed into the cold autumn night as they waited for it to fall. 

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