Chunky Move’s Antony Hamilton on 4/4

Chunky Move is currently rehearsing their much-anticipated new work 4/4, conceptualised, directed and choreographed by Chunky Move Artistic Director Antony Hamilton. Premiering on Tuesday 8 August, and running for seven shows until Saturday 12 August, eight dancers will perform a stark symphony of mesmerising movement inside the industrial vastness of Southbank’s Malthouse Theatre. 4/4 features meticulous, stripped-back dance combining choreographic precision, minimalist design and rugged street aesthetics. In keeping with this look, the dancers in 4/4 will be dressed in raw, street inspired costumes designed by Paula Levis.

The 4/4 time signature is so frequently used in most Western music genres that it’s often referred to as ‘common time’ as well. But in this new work the title 4/4 also refers to the number of dancers in the cast. After all, eight dancers divided by two equals four – that’s two quartets. And the stage will be bare except for two moveable trolly props which will at times function as smaller stages for different configurations of dancers including the separation of two quartets from one another. There is mathematics even in the formulation of the choreography itself with Hamilton speaking of his choreographic process for this new work as, “a self-organising system with number patterns that can determine the duration of various movements… sometimes you can even surprise yourself with what eventuates.”

“4/4 is probably the most densely complex choreographic work I've ever made. With an ensemble assembled from dancers with such varied experiences, knowledge and practices, it blows my mind every time I see them working, and coming together in harmonious, singular attention to the immense task of performing this work”.

4/4 can be seen as a juxtaposition to Hamilton’s more recent works like Yung Lung and Rewards for the Tribe which both incorporated a lot of stage props and colour. But in other ways it is a return to and an expansion of an earlier work and to the collaborative partnership of Antony Hamilton and sound designer Alasdair Macindoe that was fundamental to that works success. Because Hamilton and Macindoe’s last major collaboration, a duet called MEETING, was immensely popular. It took home a Green Room Award, Helpmann Award and Bessie Award from New York, touring the globe for three years running. Now playing out across the bodies of a larger cast, 4/4 reunites their idiosyncratic sound and movement language once again, for a new generation of dance-lovers.

Collaborator Alisdair Macindoe’s electronic sound design for 4/4 uses metronome arrangements as a foundational tool to create harmony and discord in its composition, elevating the complexity of the dance. The tick of the metronome grows louder and softer at various points in the work, and the sound itself will be delivered via the type of complex surround system you would more likely find in a high-tech modern cinema, making it difficult to locate where exactly the music is coming from. The work itself runs for just over an hour without interval – a singular experience – but one that is marked by segments that follow one another, each building upon the last.

This could be one of Hamilton’s most challenging works to date as 4/4 continues to push the boundaries in how audiences experience performance.

“I was saying to the dancers in rehearsal the other day that all we can do as artists is 50% of the work. The audience has to do the other half, experience, consume and then reflect back on what they’ve seen.”

But Antony thinks audiences will be impressed by the focus and sheer endurance the cast of eight dancers display in this work. The whole cast is on stage for the full duration of the work and in keeping with that metronome the action doesn’t stop until the very end.

• 4/4 runs from 8 - 12 August 2023 at Malthouse Theatre. Tickets are now on sale via malthousetheatre.com.au
• 4/4 is performed by Mason Kelly, Melissa Pham, David Prakash, Harrison Ritchie-Jones, Aimee Schollum, Michaela Tancheff, Nikki Tarling, Jayden Wall
• Further information can be found at chunkymove.com/works/4-4/