Chunky Move has announced Time Remaining, a new dance work by Artistic Director Antony Hamilton, set to premiere at Melbourne Town Hall as part of the City of Melbourne’s Now or Never festival.
Running from 19 to 20 August, Time Remaining explores the tension between human agency and machine control, bringing together movement, sound, video, light and technology in an immersive performance environment.
Created in collaboration with technical designer Nick Roux and sound and video artist Nicholas Moloney, the work uses scanning and tracking laser light, motorised winches, suspended objects and choreographic systems to create a precise, shifting dialogue between dancers and machines. Lasers, lights and objects hover, float and descend through space, interacting with the performers through geometric patterns of movement and light.
The cast includes Madeleine Bowman, Melissa Pham, Samakshi Sidhu, Lee Serle, Jayden Wall and Jareen Wee.
Through its interplay of physical precision and technological design, Time Remaining evokes a world in which technological systems quietly weave themselves into daily life, shaping how people move, interact and behave. The company describes the work as both mesmerising and menacing, asking audiences to consider how emerging technologies influence the human body and its place in the world.
Costume and material design is by Melbourne-based designer Paula Levis, a long-time collaborator of Hamilton’s. Drawing on the aesthetics of archetypal performers from past eras, the design contributes to an image of the performer as an endangered figure in an ongoing contest with the new technologies tightening their grip on the world.
Hamilton said he was humbled that Time Remaining had been commissioned by Now or Never.
“Artistic Director Elise Peyronnet has been an incredible champion of my work,” he said. “The festival platforms artists and thinkers who probe the urgent questions of our time and Peyronnet’s nuanced curation is ambitious and courageous. I look forward to sharing Time Remaining as part of the performance program with festival audiences.”
Now or Never Artistic Director Elise Peyronnet described Time Remaining as 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.”
Now or Never returns from 19 to 30 August 2026 under the curatorial theme A Whole New World, with a program exploring cultural shifts driven by immersive technologies, AI and digital storytelling.
Chunky Move, led by co-CEOs Antony Hamilton and Kristy Ayre, is one of Australia’s most significant contemporary dance companies. Over the past 30 years, the company has performed in 130 cities and 150 festivals around the world.