VINES is a site-adaptive practice and performance created by Melanie Kloetzel (kloetzel&co.) with dramaturgical support from Brandy Leary (Anandam Dance). Using state-based and durational approaches, the work explores how the human body can corporeally adapt to urban spaces by rigorously embodying growth patterns from climbing plants.
In dialogue with Indigenous concepts of relationality, VINES considers what it might mean to identify with plants as kin. Specifically, through a long-term investigation into the growth-oriented movement patterns of vining or climbing plants, the VINES practice and performance focuses on translating such movement patterns into the human body, fostering a deep sense of kinesthetic empathy with our more-than-human kin.
Produced by TRAction in collaboration with kloetzel&co., VINES has enjoyed research development in both Toronto and Calgary with support from Canada Council for the Arts. VINES has been performed at Contemporary Calgary Art Gallery as part of Fluid Fest in 2024 and in 2025 as part of the New Works Calgary season in collaboration with a live presentation of Emilie Lebel’s ‘field studies’ performed by the UltraViolet Ensemble.
For more about this research process, see: New Directions in Site Performance Practice
