Building on our success with Arch
In 2024, we toured our most ambitious work yet, Arch, to thousands of audience, across 9 sites in 7 countries, including hundreds of community singers, with immense success. We were financially supported by hundreds of Citizen Commissioners.
This momentum opens a vital opportunity.
After The Fall is not intended as a sequel, but it could be read in that way.
In Arch, there was a surprising moment when inquisitive audience members would approach the fallen arch, to touch it, to lift the heavy blocks and feel the cold ice and hot fire. They were processing this moment – after the fall. We’re interested in delving into, and expanding from, this moment in our next artwork.
“What an incredible piece of work this is. It feels moving and timely, and a massively important commentary on where we find ourselves at this point in time. The ethereal vocal composition moved me to tears.”
Audience member on Arch
After The Fall
After The Fall is a participatory performance/installation about life, death, and the perilous state of our planet, with stunning, ritual-like music and movement.
The audience witness performers constructing what appears as a large pile of bones or driftwood. But it appears mechanical. As they build they sing, as if to themselves at first.
Once it is assembled as a pile, it begins to unfold. Over the course of the next 30 minutes , plantlike, it unfolds into a giant, skeletal ribcage, or blooms into a honeysuckle. Familiar yet alien – perhaps from a posthuman future, or mythical past. By its materials it appears dead and mechanical, and clearly constructed, but by its movement it appears alive.
Once the structure is extended, audiences move in and around its temporary architecture. Some of the audience join in the singing.
Fires are lit along its spine.
The singing becomes all encompassing and glorious. As hundreds of voices fill the air, human bodies bring the ribcage to life, becoming the flesh and breath of its lungs.
The ribcage breathes in and out.
Immersive, multisensory, and like a fallen cathedral or shipwreck, it holds the audience as they dwell, meditate, bathe in sound: a wordless song about our planet in crisis.
Then, still breathing, the fires are pulled away, and the structure shrinks again. The music shifts, and the human bodies gradually leave, like the tide emptying a beach.
After The Fall examines a moment in the future, and yet in all of our presents, beyond a time of catastrophe or collapse – an imagined moment, where we experience a simultaneous state of living and death.
The moments or days leading up to death are often referred to as the terminal phase – but this is not that – there is still the potential for life, for resuscitation, for renewal.
We are in a moment of high anxiety for the sustainability of life on earth.
And met by a new power of strong denial.
With pathos and hope, After The Fall will hold us in this moment and implicitly ask us how we feel, and where we might go from here.
There is wood that the tide brings in that has been at sea so long it is indistinguishable from bone.
From a posthuman world, a half mechanical half alive beast, from somewhere else in time or place, indiscernibly vegetal or animal. Still breathing.
From a posthuman world, a half mechanical half alive beast, from somewhere else in time or place, indiscernibly vegetal or animal. Still breathing.
Stone lithograph, Seth Honnor
Engineering R&D
Seth Honnor and Irene Urrutia have developed a parabolic former that can be released from every loading point of an arch at exactly the same time. We chose not to use it for Arch because we decided its clever animated action would detract from the simplicity of the constructed arch.
However, we became very interested in its animal and plant like animation. We plan to use the engineering as a starting point for the development of the unfurling mechanism for After The Fall.
Seth and Irene worked with ARUP to oversee the engineering and calculate the stresses and loading, as we will do for After The Fall.
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After The Fall Team
After The Fall confirmed creative and production team
Movement - Laïla Diallo
Laïla is a performer, movement director and choreographer working primarily across dance, theatre and opera. She co-directs GATHER UP, a Bristol-based artist-led dance development initiative. With Kaleider, Laïla worked on Arch and performs in The Money.
Dramaturgy - Tanuja Amarasuriya
Tanuja is a director, dramaturg and occasional sound artist. Her work is rooted in theatre, as well as film, audio, video games and creative technology. She is a resident at Watershed's Pervasive Media Studio. Tanuja was the dramaturg on Arch.
Executive Producer - Katie Keeler
Katie is Kaleider's Executive Producer and joint CEO. She heads up all production, leads the producing team and runs the company with Seth.
Artist, Designer, Communications - Irene Xochitl Urrutia
Irene is an Artist and Producer at Kaleider. Her collaborative practice is based on a background in art & design, curating, and research. She is on the Board of The Pink Cube, a platform for queer art and culture. For After The Fall Irene will support Seth in leading the concept and creative team, co-lead the design of the installation and head up communications.
Lead Artist and Director - Seth Honnor
Seth is the Founder and Artistic Director of Kaleider, and joint CEO with Katie. His artistic practice combines installation, performance and digital. He is the lead artist on After The Fall and will direct the creative team.
Company and Project Management - Jocelyn S Mills
Jocelyn is Company Manager at Kaleider, having been a producer for the company for many years. She is especially interested in where and how artworks and audiences meet. Jocelyn is a Trustee on the Board of Unlimited. For After The Fall Jocelyn will manage finance and contracting, and lead on access and inclusion.
Artist and Lighting Designer - Nao Nagai
Nao Nagai is an Artist, Teacher, Performer, and Lighting Designer. She has worked with Dan Daw, Tamasha, National Theatre, Royal Court, Philharmonia Orchestra, Split Britches, Duckie, Frank Chickens, and Kaleider. For After The Fall Nao will design the lights, perform and support Seth and Irene in the design and delivery of the installation.
Documentary maker - Barney Witts
Barney Witts is Founder and director of Fluxx Films where he produces films for a range of clients internationally. Barney has been working with Kaleider as a videographer for several years. He documented the 2024 tour of Arch in a highly successful mini-doc. Barney will document After The Fall.
Production Manager - Jay Kerry
Jay is a freelance Production Manager at Kaleider, often on tour with our work. In his own practice Jay works with digital technologies to create experiences that take place alongside everyday life and extend over a period of days, weeks or months.
June: Terschelling, Netherlands, and Bern, Switzerland.
July: Gratz, Austria
August: Hasselt, Belgium
September: Aarhaus, Denmark, and Fredrikstad, Norway
October: Glasgow, UK
