Kaleider (UK)
“Time stood still when Kaleider performed the piece ‘Arch’ last night. A truly magical experience.” – Aarhus Festuge
Where concrete meets ice, visceral tension unfolds.
Arch, from Director Seth Honnor and UK collective Kaleider, is an exquisite performance of breath, heart, and muscle, where performers build a gravity-defying, freestanding arch—two-thirds unforgiving concrete, one-third melting ice. The perpetual inevitability of collapse creates a complex and compelling emotional journey.
A languageless score by composer Verity Standen holds and moves us through this “installation opera,” performed on the floor of the PS21 open-air Pavilion Theater.
Relentlessly physical, equal parts meditative and highly charged, Arch leans into themes of death, renewal, and hope to examine the extraordinary and flawed systems humans create—language, economies, architectures, democracies—and how they impact us and our ecologies.
The premise is disarmingly simple. What takes place is straightforward. But the emotional aftermath remains devastatingly complex.
Seating for this performance is limited, and is available on a first-come-first-serve basis. Please register in advance to guarantee yourself a seat. Standing room & blanket seating will be available once all seats are registered for.
COMMONGROUND is PS21’s free festival of street theater and new circus, where renowned international companies explore the boundaries of what’s physically possible in participatory performances across the PS21 grounds.
Food and drink will be available all weekend long. Bring your whole family, and join in on the excitement as we close our summer season.
Kaleider is an international Production Studio that combines installation, live performance, and digital in our artworks, almost always in collaboration.
Kaleider is led by Artist and Director Seth Honnor and Executive Producer Katie Keeler, with Artist and Producer Irene Urrutia, and Producer and Company Manager Jocelyn Mills.
Kaleider Studios is in Exeter, UK where the company makes their work and runs projects.
Singers: Aminita Francis, Ellian Showering, Kate Smith, Phil King, Verity Standen
Builders: Nao Nagai, Seth Honnor, Irene Urrutia, Jay Kerry
Kaleider shares space with other creative organizations, individuals, and collaborators.
They tour to cities, festivals, venues and public spaces all over the world.
This performance is possible thanks to lead support from the GKV Foundation and the rest of our generous sponsors.
Arch is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Arch research and development is supported by IN SITU, the European platform for artistic creation in public space, in the frame of the project UN(COMMON) SPACES, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, and supported by Freedom Festival Arts Trust.
Arch was developed with the support of the National Theatre’s Generate programme.
Arch is co-commissioned by Theater op de Markt.
Arch is backed by hundreds of Citizen Commissioners: individual donors who supported Kaleider to make and bring this work into the world.
