Length: 9mins (currently)
Dimensions: 2x2metres
Props: Upright piano and utensils for playing it Lighting: general lighting wash with 4 birdies to highlight inside of piano and Sophie.

‘Hammer’ is an original performance work first created as part of Australian Dance Theatre’s ‘The World’s Smallest Stage’ in July 2020. Ten choreographers matched with twelve dancers and ten composers to create a series of new dance works, between 5-10 minutes’ each. Each new dance piece is confined to a living room size area of 2m x 2m. The work is, at its core, a continuation of themes explored by Booth-Remmers in recent works, dealing with ideas of stasis, repetition, energetic builds and peaks and the eventual return to a shifted normalcy, which is a common experience for everyone and especially artists. It was first inspired by a scene from ‘There Will Be Blood’, in which Paul Dano takes the audience on a rollercoaster ride of emotions and responses in a few short minutes. During the work’s creation we discovered that these themes were intricately linked to the experience of many people during the Covid crisis as well; feelings of being stuck and caught in a loop, looking for the eventual return (or progression) to a ‘new normal’; an altered state that is only attainable by passing through the journey.

Continued Development:

Ideally the work would be viewed in the round, so that the audience could move around it and watch it from any angle. A gallery, bar or open space would suit it perfectly. We are interested in continuing the development of the piece to add a last scene to it, where the piano can potentially be pushed over or off a height, causing it to crash to the ground, physically and sonically. The piano would then be reset, without any damage being repaired, and the work performed again after a short break. This would create a sense of repetition and slow degradation of the situation, not just within the linear timeline of the piece, but also in the actual timeline of the overall performance space, essentially making it a durational work.