The Coming Silence film

The Coming Silence
The Coming Silence
The Coming Silence
The Coming Silence
The Coming Silence
The Coming Silence

The Coming Silence (a film)

The Coming Silence is a film based on the live site-adaptive performance installation, The Coming Silence. Released in 2022, the film premiered at the Green Montenegro International Film Festival (Montenegro), and has also been screened at DANCE ONSCREEN (Canada), the Outlet Dance Project (USA), and HECare Film Festival (Canada). The film also won an Honourable Mention for Costume Design at the Exeter Dance International Film Festival (UK).

The Coming Silence is a site-based performance installation that highlights humanity’s ethical dilemmas in the Anthropocene. Created with support from Canada Council for the Arts, The Coming Silence examines the concept of extinction, whether through viral, climatic or ecological means, by focusing on the taxidermied reality of the natural history museum. 

A creation of kloetzel&co., The Coming Silence includes direction/choreography by Melanie Kloetzel with cinematography by Linnea Swan and poetry by A.E. Stallings. Performers for the work include Kaili Che, Shondra Cromwell-Krywulak, Hannah Isbister, Megan Koch, Alyssa Maturino, Meghann Michalsky, Sarah Mitchell, Camille Mori, Maggie Myles, Rufi Oswaldo, Taylor Ritchie, and Reese Wilson.

MEN in charge

Photo by Kevin Leiver
MEN poster
MEN at Mac Hall
MEN in charge
MEN at Christmas
MEN in charge / Dance of the Puppets

MEN in charge

MEN in charge is a film that explores the creation and presentation of the live performance work, It began with watching. In doc(mock)umentary form, MEN in charge depicts how kloetzel&co. was able to create a brutally humorous take on gender and/in the U.S. political landscape as ‘alternative facts’ and outlandish acts take centre stage. Co-created with the cinematographer and director Linnea Swan, MEN in charge offers an entertaining and honest portrait of a sector enthralled with power. 

Since its release on January 20, 2021 (U.S. Inauguration Day), MEN in charge has received a Best Short Documentary Award from the DC AFTER DARK International Film Festival, a Best Documentary award from the Mabig Film Festival (Germany), a Best Female Short award from the Freedom Festival International (USA), a Best Experimental Film from the GO Independent International Film Festival (USA), as well as an Honorable Mention in the Documentary Short category at the New York IO Film Festival (USA).

MEN in charge has also been selected for presentation through the Toronto International Women Film Festival, Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema (Boulder, CO), the LA Independent Women Film Awards, Film Girl Film Festival (WI), Star City Film Festival (MN), the ARTS x SDGs Festival (NY), the New York City IO Film Festival, Freedom Festival International (SC), the Festival of Genders and Performances (Portugal), dance:made in canada festival (Toronto), Reading Film Fest (Reading, PA), FLOW Festival (FL), and the Moving Parts Film Festival (Los Angeles).

Two sneak previews of the film were presented by Wild Dogs international Screendance Festival and through ReLoCate’s The Experiment #4 series. Subscribe to the kloetzel&co. YouTube channel to see three episodic trailers for the film. 

The film is based on the work It began with watching that toured to over ten theatre spaces and alternative sites in Canada between 2016-20.

Room (a film)

Room (a film)
Room (a film)
Room (a film)
Room (a film)
Room (a film)
Room (a film)

Room (a film)

Room, an environmental dance film by kloetzel&co., examines the themes of ecological precarity and adaptation in the Anthropocene. Based on the live site-adaptive performance work, Room, and filmed on site in Glasgow, UK and Calgary, Canada, the film uses close-ups of physical interactions with a diversity of sites and quick cuts between sites to display the human body as both inherently mobile but also fixed in place, unable to escape the vagaries of environmental transformation.

Created by Melanie Kloetzel, in collaboration with set designer Fergus Dunnet and cinematographer Chantal Wall, Room weighs the limits and possibilities of human efforts to adapt to a rapidly changing world. Winner of a 2019 ‘Creativity Award’ from A Show for a Change film festival, and one of only ten films selected for spudFILM: Wasted – An Environmental Film Fest in the UK, Room has also been selected for Seattle’s Virtual Cinema Festival and as a special feature for the Equinox Mountain Film Festival in Manchester, Vermont.

Dance of the Puppets

It began with watching
Dance of the Puppets
Dance of the Puppets

Dance of the Puppets

Dance of the Puppets explores the transformation of democracy as ‘alternative facts’ and outlandish acts populate the political landscape. Through sardonic interactions, blunt physicality, and a brutally humorous text, the work exposes the alarming possibilities that arise as governments, concentrated wealth, and surveillance technologies join forces. A droplet of intelligence here, a hint of a shadowy figure, and we are all marionettes, putty in the puppet master’s hands.

The film is directed/edited by Melanie Kloetzel with camera work by Kevin Leiver. Winner of a ‘Best Cast’ award from Toronto’s Alternative Film Festival and nominated for a Best Story/Message award from MarDelDance Film Festival, the work has also been selected for screening through EnCore: Dance on Film in Atlanta, Georgia, the Dallas Dance Film Festival in Texas, the Film Collective in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Desert Edge Global Film Festival in Andore, India, and for Kinetoscope International Screendance Film Festival in Missoula, Montana.

This film short is based on the stage and site works, It began with watching and MEN in charge, as seen under the ‘On Site’ and ‘On Stage’ pages. It was filmed on-site at Edmonton City Hall.

Dance of the Puppets also functions as a trailer for the upcoming feature film MEN in charge, that offers a complete documentary of the creative process of making It began with watching.

The Dwindling Dispute

The Dwindling Dispute
The Dwindling Dispute
The Dwindling Dispute
The Dwindling Dispute
The Dwindling Dispute

The Dwindling Dispute

The dance film The Dwindling Dispute, set in the rapidly changing East Village of Calgary, developed from kloetzel&co’s evening-length work, The Alice Odyssey. When Alice confronts Lewis Carroll’s Red and White Queens in Through the Looking Glass, her world turns upside down. In The Dwindling Dispute, a dance film with performances by Naomi Brand and Melanie Kloetzel and cinematography by Jennifer Mahood, the Queens bewilder little Alice with relentless pseudo-scuffles, precise musicality, and nonsensical wordplay. But who is really in control, Alice or the farcical Queens?

Premiere:
The American Dance Festival’s 20th International Screendance Festival, curated by Douglas Rosenberg and Katrina McPherson

July 19, 2015 – Nasher Art Museum, Durham, USA

Additional screenings:

dance:made in canada festival (Toronto)
August 2015, Betty Oliphant Theatre

IDST Installation (Edinburgh)
December 2015, Summerhall

POZA Project (Glasgow)
January 2016, Kinning Park Complex

Calgary Underground Film Festival Dance Film Night (Calgary)
February 2016, The Globe Cinema

Happenings 12 – A three-month continuous run at Arts Commons in Calgary, AB (2018)

A preview screening of The Dwindling Dispute took place at:
Dance International Glasgow Festival, Tramway 4 – April 29th, 11 am

The Sanitastics

The Sanitastics
The Sanitastics
The Sanitastics

The Sanitastics

kloetzel&co. released the humorous sci-fi dance film, The Sanitastics, in 2011. Set in the Calgary Skywalk system, hygienic superheroes scour the system removing any oddities, invasive species, and problematic beings. With fantastic creatures and virtuosic feats, The Sanitastics offers an electrifyingly contradictory site-specific adventure in a corporate landscape. A collaboration with Jeff Curtis, with support from the Centre for Research in the Fine Arts.

Presented by:
Essential Dance Films, TenduTV, 2012-2013
Sans Souci Festival of Dance on Tour, TX, 2013
Third Coast Dance Film Festival on Tour, PA, 2012
Gallery of Alberta Media Artist, EPCOR Centre for the Performing Arts, Calgary, AB, 2011-12 (3-month run)
Sao Carlos Videodance Festival, Brazil, 2011
Festival Internacional de Videodanza de Uruguay, 2011
Oklahoma Dance Film Festival, OK, 2011
Third Coast Dance Film Festival, TX, 2011
Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema, CO, 2011

Icarus Fried (the film)

Icarus Fried (the film)
Icarus Fried (the film)
Icarus Fried (the film)

Icarus Fried (the film)

A dance film short based on the live work, Icarus Fried offers a site-specific dialogue with the Frazier Egg Farm in Pocatello, ID. The film developed from a collaboration between clarinetist John Masserini, filmmaker Jeff Curtis, and kloetzel&co.

Presented by:
Northwest New Works PodFest, Seattle, WA, 2008
Danca em Foco International Festival of Video & Dance in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2007
Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema in Boulder, CO, 2007 (chosen as a Best of Fest)
DANSCAMDANSE Festival in Ghent, Belgium, 2007

Back Doors

Back Doors
Back Doors

Back Doors

kloetzel&co. collaborated with filmmaker Emily Crawford to create Back Doors, a short film set in the alleys of Missoula, MT.

Presented by:
Ceretana Art Gallery Film Series, Missoula, MT, 2005
Rogers Experimental Theatre, Pocatello, ID, 2005
Lunafest, a national women’s film festival, selected as local entry, Pocatello, ID, 2005