HIGH OCTANE
Images Nat Cartney.
World premiere:
Campbelltown Arts Centre Commission
27 - 29 March 2025
Choreographer/performer: Emma Harrison
Performers/collaborators: Emma Riches, Frances Orlina
Sound designer: Amy Flannery
Lighting design: Benjamin Brockman
Dramaturg: Adriane Daff
Producer: Anthea Doropolous
Costume: Eliza Cooper
Understudy: Cassidy Mcdermott Smith
I grew up in the early 2000s, clinging to the dream of ‘having it all,’ and ‘making it’ - a fantasy fed by coming-of-age movies where the underdog always found their way to the top. It was a time when the internet was only just blooming, decorated excess reigned, and success felt like something you could grab if you wanted it badly enough. For most of us, wanting it was never enough and the hustle, the grind, the need to prove yourself over and over becomes the fuel for survival.
For me, High Octane is a noughties period piece that dissects class, ambition, and consumption culture, how they were packaged and sold to us then and how they still echo today. It’s gritty, relentless, and steeped in the mannerisms of my regional upbringing. I grew up with unstable housing; 19 houses and counting, and no more than a year or two in each place. I revelled in the possibility of transcending the social status bestowed upon me just by virtue of being born at that time, to those people. The work is a love letter to my loud, bogan, revhead family who live fast and die young, who ride the line between desperation and aspiration, constantly fighting with no winner in sight.
Hard work and endurance sit at the core of High Octane, not as something glamorous, but as something necessary. It is high-energy and highly physical, the dance charging forward with unrestrained momentum, pushing our bodies to exhaustion, testing what it means to keep going when the odds are stacked against you. The work is garish and loud, it moves fast and doesn’t wait for you to catch up. Like the endless laps of the Bathurst 1000, it refuses to stop, demanding attention, demanding more. I want you to feel what it means to keep moving even when the road stretches endlessly ahead.
Campbelltown Arts Centre Commission
27 - 29 March 2025
Choreographer/performer: Emma Harrison
Performers/collaborators: Emma Riches, Frances Orlina
Sound designer: Amy Flannery
Lighting design: Benjamin Brockman
Dramaturg: Adriane Daff
Producer: Anthea Doropolous
Costume: Eliza Cooper
Understudy: Cassidy Mcdermott Smith
I grew up in the early 2000s, clinging to the dream of ‘having it all,’ and ‘making it’ - a fantasy fed by coming-of-age movies where the underdog always found their way to the top. It was a time when the internet was only just blooming, decorated excess reigned, and success felt like something you could grab if you wanted it badly enough. For most of us, wanting it was never enough and the hustle, the grind, the need to prove yourself over and over becomes the fuel for survival.
For me, High Octane is a noughties period piece that dissects class, ambition, and consumption culture, how they were packaged and sold to us then and how they still echo today. It’s gritty, relentless, and steeped in the mannerisms of my regional upbringing. I grew up with unstable housing; 19 houses and counting, and no more than a year or two in each place. I revelled in the possibility of transcending the social status bestowed upon me just by virtue of being born at that time, to those people. The work is a love letter to my loud, bogan, revhead family who live fast and die young, who ride the line between desperation and aspiration, constantly fighting with no winner in sight.
Hard work and endurance sit at the core of High Octane, not as something glamorous, but as something necessary. It is high-energy and highly physical, the dance charging forward with unrestrained momentum, pushing our bodies to exhaustion, testing what it means to keep going when the odds are stacked against you. The work is garish and loud, it moves fast and doesn’t wait for you to catch up. Like the endless laps of the Bathurst 1000, it refuses to stop, demanding attention, demanding more. I want you to feel what it means to keep moving even when the road stretches endlessly ahead.