Chunky Move explores technology’s grip in new Now or Never work

Southbank-based contemporary dance company Chunky Move will premiere a major new work at Melbourne Town Hall this August as part of the City of Melbourne’s Now or Never festival.

Time Remaining, created by Chunky Move artistic director Antony Hamilton, will run from August 19 to 20, bringing together dance, laser light, sound, video and suspended mechanical systems in a work exploring the tension between human agency and machine control.

Commissioned for Now or Never, the production reflects the festival’s broader 2026 theme, A Whole New World, which examines the cultural shifts being driven by immersive technologies, artificial intelligence and digital storytelling.

For Chunky Move, one of Australia’s most internationally recognised contemporary dance companies, the new work continues its long-running interest in movement, systems, technology and the future of performance.

Created in collaboration with award-winning technical designer Nick Roux and sound and video artist Nicholas Moloney, Time Remaining uses scanning and tracking laser light alongside motorised winches, suspended objects and precise geometric patterns.

Rather than serving only as stage effects, the machines become choreographic agents in their own right, with lasers, lights and objects hovering, floating and descending through space in dialogue with the dancers.

The result is described as both mesmerising and menacing, inviting audiences to consider how technology increasingly shapes the way people move, interact and exist.

The work will be performed by Madeleine Bowman, Melissa Pham, Samakshi Sidhu, Lee Serle, Jayden Wall and Jareen Wee, whose physical precision and presence will help bring Hamilton’s vision to life.

Through shifting patterns of movement and light, the production evokes a world in which technological systems quietly weave themselves into everyday life, exerting a subtle but powerful influence over human behaviour.

Costume and material design by Melbourne-based designer and long-time Chunky Move collaborator Paula Levis draws on the aesthetics of archetypal performers from past eras.

That visual approach creates an unsettling image of the performer as an endangered figure in an ongoing contest with new technologies tightening their grip on the world.

Hamilton said he was humbled that Time Remaining had been commissioned by Now or Never, describing the festival as a platform for artists and thinkers probing urgent questions.

“Artistic Director Elise Peyronnet has been an incredible champion of my work,” Hamilton said.

“I look forward to sharing Time Remaining as part of the performance program with festival audiences.”

Now or Never artistic director Elise Peyronnet said it was a privilege to support a major new work from one of Melbourne’s most celebrated contemporary dance companies.

“In Time Remaining, Chunky Move brings together movement, sound and technology in a work that speaks directly to the questions shaping our time,” she said.

“Ambitious, innovative and deeply human, it reflects the spirit of Now or Never and the extraordinary creative talent that continues to emerge from Melbourne.”

Chunky Move has built a global reputation for bold, genre-defying work, performing in 130 cities and 150 festivals over the past 30 years.

The company, based in Southbank and led by co-CEOs Antony Hamilton and Kristy Ayre, continues to play a major role in contemporary dance through major works, commissions, residencies and education programs.

Time Remaining will be performed at Melbourne Town Hall on Wednesday, August 19 and Thursday, August 20, with sessions at 6.30pm and 8.30pm.