Cybernetic Mysticism and the Enduring Spirit in the Post-Digital BodyForfeiting the Flesh Toward Collective Spiritual Rebirth
“Techno-paganism seems to beat at the cyborg heart of Chunky Move’s maximalist sci-fi vision of a mechanically augmented future.” — Dance Magazine
“Under neon lights, the dragon-like form of the dancers blurs all boundaries, expressing an ambition that stretches beyond the biological.” — Beat Magazine
Michael Pham for Asia TOPA, Arts Centre Melbourne 2025
Blurring the lines between machine and myth, U>N>I>T>E>D is a genre-defying work of contemporary dance that challenges audiences to rethink the relationship between humans and machines. Produced by Melbourne-based Chunky Move, a dance company renowned for collapsing artistic boundaries, this cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary performance brings together Indonesian experimental music duo Gabber Modus Operandi, Bali fashion label Future Loundry, and the globally renowned animatronic pioneers Creature Technology Co. The work debuted at Asia TOPA in Melbourne, and now arrives at Taipei Performing Arts Center’s Blue Box to call audiences into a ritualistic, near-futurist spectacle.
Combining choreography, installation, electronic music, fashion, and robotics, six performers don mechanical costumes made from recycled materials, enacting a visceral dialogue between technology, spirit, and the human body. Under pulsating neon and industrial soundscapes, U>N>I>T>E>D confronts our expectations of the future, posing urgent questions about embodiment, collectivity, and transcendence.
Genesis｜Spiritual Resonance in a Technological Jungle
U>N>I>T>E>D was born out of a three-year creative dialogue between Chunky Move and Gabber Modus Operandi, two artistic forces connected by a shared fascination with the persistence of spirituality in an increasingly technological world. The collaboration began with a virtual encounter on social media, which led to a series of creative sessions and costume prototyping in Bali in 2020. By 2023, the relationship had matured into the full-fledged collaborative force behind this work.
As Artistic Director Antony Hamilton notes, “Even in post-industrial, hyper-urban contexts, our connection to the spiritual and the unknown remains deeply embedded—though often overlooked.” It is this undercurrent that powers U>N>I>T>E>D, a work that fuses mythology and futurism into a vocabulary of choreography, sound, and machine.
Michael Pham for Asia TOPA, Arts Centre Melbourne 2025
What to Expect | Mutating into Dragons Through Rhythm and Steel
Across 60 minutes, six performers transform into post-human, mythic hybrids—part machine, part beast—through a series of sculptural, modular costumes inspired by off-road motorbikes. Their bodies morph, extend, and converge, forming a collective “dragon” that pulses with shared intention. The piece opens in menace, progresses through resistance and release, and ends in ecstatic rebirth.
As for sound design, Gabber Modus Operandi merges gamelan influences with techno, growls, and syncopated heavy beats, creating a sonic atmosphere thick with tension. For the shell, costumes developed by Creature Technology Co. offer dancers a paradoxical freedom through restriction: their movements become extended, stylized, and sculptural, transforming constraint into kinetic power.
Visually, the work draws on late-20th-century sci-fi cinema, animist symbolism, and Balinese ritual aesthetics—offering smoky ceremonial landscapes and choreographic motifs arranged like rites of passage. Here, the audience is not merely watching; they are participants in a hybrid space that merges nightclub, ritual, and live concert into a multisensory communion.
Michael Pham for Asia TOPA, Arts Centre Melbourne 2025
Interdisciplinary Alchemy｜Sound and Light as Consciousness
Beyond its choreographic core, U>N>I>T>E>D functions as a living experiment in hybrid aesthetics, where music, costume, robotics, and movement converge to create a singular immersive language. Gabber Modus Operandi crafts a ritualistic, high-intensity soundscape that fuses traditional Indonesian sonorities with abrasive digital textures, while Future Loundry outfits the performers in wearable machines made from reclaimed materials—blending techno-primitivism with post-apocalyptic glamour. Creature Technology Co.’s exoskeletal prosthetics merge seamlessly with the dancers’bodies, extending their range of motion and transforming them into sculptural, cyborg-like figures. The choreography itself weaves together elements of street and contemporary dance, reimagined through the lens of spatial ritual and collective embodiment.
Hamilton’s choreography is deeply informed by observation—of space, bodies, and culture. As revealed in a recent Broadsheet interview, his inspirations often emerge not from traditional dance but from daily life in Melbourne: creekside runs, vinyl hunts, and spontaneous encounters in the city’s layered urban fabric. These personal rituals echo in U>N>I>T>E>D’s structural rhythms and ceremonial aura, turning everyday awareness into mythic architecture built upon the waves of the Western Pacific
Michael Pham for Asia TOPA, Arts Centre Melbourne 2025
About the CompanyChunky Move and Antony Hamilton’s Vision of Post-Human Performance
“Whenever this company appears on a program, you know things are about to get weird.” - Broadsheet Magazine
Founded in Melbourne in 1995, Chunky Move is one of the world’s most adventurous contemporary dance companies, acclaimed for its boundary-smashing approach to genre and form. Its name—suggesting a “chunk” of movement—signals its deep inquiry into the physical, spatial, and technological extensions of the body. Chunky Move’s works have toured globally, including presentations at the Venice Biennale and the Edinburgh Festival.
Since 2019, the company has been led by Artistic Director Antony Hamilton, an artist shaped by 1980s pop culture, breakdancing, and the visual logic of music videos. His practice blurs sculpture, robotics, and choreography, often evoking post-human bodies and collective trance states. His previous works include:
- Token Armies (2019): A techno-military procession envisioning machine-human cohabitation.
- Yung Lung (2022): A mythic rave staged atop an LED plinth.
- You, Beauty (2024): A tender, inflatable exploration of intimacy and care.
Under Hamilton’s direction, Chunky Move has entered a bold new phase, in which the body becomes not merely a site of expression but a conduit for technological and spiritual inquiry. With U>N>I>T>E>D, the company summons a future where dance is not a performance, but a ritual—an act of becoming in a world remade by machine, myth, and memory.
Photo by Gianna Rizzo
Chunky Move
Chunky Move creates bold, genre-defying contemporary dance. Internationally renowned for ambitious and highly original work, the award-winning company maintains a reputation for being at the forefront of contemporary dance globally. Under the leadership of co-CEOs Antony Hamilton and Kristy Ayre, Chunky Move play a crucial role in driving dance forward in Australia and beyond. Artists and audiences are at the heart of the company, expressed in a dense program of major works, commissions, residencies and education offerings. Over the last 30 years, Chunky Move has performed in 130 cities in 150 festivals throughout the world, captivating over 610K audiences.
Artistic Direction & Choreography: Antony Hamilton
Sound Design & Composition: Gabber Modus Operandi
Costume Design: Future Loundry
Exoskeleton Design & Fabrication: Creature Technology Co.
Lighting Design: Benjamin Cisterne
Performers & Choreography: Madeleine Bowman, Melissa Pham, David Prakash, Samakshi Sidhu, Robert Alejandro Tinning, Jayden Wall
Rehearsal Director: Rachel Coulson
Stage/Set Design/Fabrication and Art Finishing: Ashley Buchanan and Antony Hamilton
Set and Costume LED Fabrication: Shiv Geaney
Outside Eye: Melanie Lane
Production Manager: Ashley Buchanan
Production Coordinator: Benjamin Beare
System Engineer and Head Electrician: Shiv Geaney
Lighting Programmer and Re-lighter: Nicholas Moloney
Sound Engineer and Technical Coordinator: Ethan Hunter
Stage Manager: Zsuzsa Gaynor Mihaly
Executive Director/co-CEO: Kristy Ayre
Senior Producer: Kristina Arnott
U>N>I>T>E>D is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body, the City of Melbourne, the International Cultural Diplomacy Arts Fund, and the Playking Foundation via a Playking Foundation Travel Grant.
Organizer
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