Director, Choreographer & performer: Jenni Large
Collaborating performer: Amber McCartney
Sound designer: Anna Whitaker
Lighting designer: Adelaide Harney
Sculptural fabricator: Jemima Lucas
Costume Design: Michelle Boyde
Dramaturgy: Ashleigh Musk
Research Assistant/Curator: P. Eldridge
Understudy: Nikki Tarling
Secondements: Cassandra Tattersall
Supported by Dancehouse, Chloe Munro Fellowship through The Australian Cultural Fund and Creative Australia.
Initial Development was commissioned by the 2022 Keir Choreographic Award through Phillip Keir and Australia Council for the Arts, supported by Dancehouse and Carriage Works.
Collaborating performer: Amber McCartney
Sound designer: Anna Whitaker
Lighting designer: Adelaide Harney
Sculptural fabricator: Jemima Lucas
Costume Design: Michelle Boyde
Dramaturgy: Ashleigh Musk
Research Assistant/Curator: P. Eldridge
Understudy: Nikki Tarling
Secondements: Cassandra Tattersall
Supported by Dancehouse, Chloe Munro Fellowship through The Australian Cultural Fund and Creative Australia.
Initial Development was commissioned by the 2022 Keir Choreographic Award through Phillip Keir and Australia Council for the Arts, supported by Dancehouse and Carriage Works.
WET HARD LONG
trailer: https://vimeo.com/859331847
PREMIERE SEASON, Dancehouse 4-13 July, Naarm/Melbourne
— Bending innuendo and oozing feminine resilience a-top 8 inch heels.
Wet Hard Long exhibits the enduring femme body under scrutiny of a patriarchal society.
Edging the audience towards the promise of relief, two dancers undertake exacting physical feats. Their bodies contend with obstacles, objects and elements – each, more impossible than the last.
Extended from Jenni Large’s 2022 KCA audience prize-winning work (Wet Hard), Wet Hard Long is an epic display of grit, glamour, and glistening jaw-clenching stamina. A slippery endurance piece demanding perseverance from performers and viewers in a tribute to the strenuous expectations which femme bodies continue to overcome.
Subverting narratives around sex and power, performing perfection, and avoiding failure, Wet Hard Long provokes questions about identity, desire, ownership, consent and the holy and arduous qualities of the feminine.
“In over a decade of reviewing, this is the best dance performance I have ever seen.” — ★★★★★ Jessi Ryan, ArtsHub
“As they move around the stage, they appear to envelop one another in slow motion, disappearing in uncanny symmetries and mirror effects. They bend like Hans Bellmer dolls and create surreal heaps of fishnet calves, spikes and sparkles.” — ★★★★ Andrew Fuhrmann, The Age
Read P. eldridge’s commissioned response to Wet Hard Long here
P. Eldridge (she/her) is a writer, literary editor, dramaturg, founder of the radical trans anarchist zine SISSY ANARCHY, managing editor of Worms, and co-founder of The Compost Library, working between London and so- called Australia.
~
The initial work, ‘Wet Hard’ was the winner of the 2022 Keir Choreographic People’s Choice Award. (Premiere season June 23 - July 2 2022, Dancehouse Naarm & Carriage Works Gadigal Land)
Written Interview by Chelsea Hopper
Film Interview
Reviews of Wet Hard for KCA:
“Large and fellow performer Amber McCartney executed a series of ultra-difficult physical feats in a bid to upend societal expectations. With exceptionally strong performances, this slick affair... its composition and pacing delivered sharp imagery and a quietly powerful punch.”
- Rhys Ryan, Dance Australia
“Large and Amber McCartney slowly stalk forwards on the floor, they’ve transformed from two-legged to four, and later, a hybrid eight, with immense core strength. In doing so, they truly “disrupt the limits and expectations placed upon female bodies.” Fit the mould, the female body, the world over, is a contested terrain. What do we do now to bring about structural transformation? We act. We redraw the map.”
- Gracia Haby, Fjord Review
“I envisaged slowly spilling quicksilver, emphasised through slow crawls and upended pedalling motions to sharp culinary implements wielded by either butchers (or maniacs) when precariously balancing in mirrored jack knifed positions, to the broken shards of looking glasses offering the illusion of a thousand tiny refracted facets, and lastly as circuits firing along an information freeway into the ether... the power of simply standing in the shoes as the lights died made me... just stare at those platforms in amazement that anything could so gracefully be achieved.”
- Vicky Van-Hout, Form Dance Projects - blogger in residence
Image credits:
Gianna Rizzo
— Bending innuendo and oozing feminine resilience a-top 8 inch heels.
Wet Hard Long exhibits the enduring femme body under scrutiny of a patriarchal society.
Edging the audience towards the promise of relief, two dancers undertake exacting physical feats. Their bodies contend with obstacles, objects and elements – each, more impossible than the last.
Extended from Jenni Large’s 2022 KCA audience prize-winning work (Wet Hard), Wet Hard Long is an epic display of grit, glamour, and glistening jaw-clenching stamina. A slippery endurance piece demanding perseverance from performers and viewers in a tribute to the strenuous expectations which femme bodies continue to overcome.
Subverting narratives around sex and power, performing perfection, and avoiding failure, Wet Hard Long provokes questions about identity, desire, ownership, consent and the holy and arduous qualities of the feminine.
“In over a decade of reviewing, this is the best dance performance I have ever seen.” — ★★★★★ Jessi Ryan, ArtsHub
“As they move around the stage, they appear to envelop one another in slow motion, disappearing in uncanny symmetries and mirror effects. They bend like Hans Bellmer dolls and create surreal heaps of fishnet calves, spikes and sparkles.” — ★★★★ Andrew Fuhrmann, The Age
Read P. eldridge’s commissioned response to Wet Hard Long here
P. Eldridge (she/her) is a writer, literary editor, dramaturg, founder of the radical trans anarchist zine SISSY ANARCHY, managing editor of Worms, and co-founder of The Compost Library, working between London and so- called Australia.
~
The initial work, ‘Wet Hard’ was the winner of the 2022 Keir Choreographic People’s Choice Award. (Premiere season June 23 - July 2 2022, Dancehouse Naarm & Carriage Works Gadigal Land)
Written Interview by Chelsea Hopper
Film Interview
Reviews of Wet Hard for KCA:
“Large and fellow performer Amber McCartney executed a series of ultra-difficult physical feats in a bid to upend societal expectations. With exceptionally strong performances, this slick affair... its composition and pacing delivered sharp imagery and a quietly powerful punch.”
- Rhys Ryan, Dance Australia
“Large and Amber McCartney slowly stalk forwards on the floor, they’ve transformed from two-legged to four, and later, a hybrid eight, with immense core strength. In doing so, they truly “disrupt the limits and expectations placed upon female bodies.” Fit the mould, the female body, the world over, is a contested terrain. What do we do now to bring about structural transformation? We act. We redraw the map.”
- Gracia Haby, Fjord Review
“I envisaged slowly spilling quicksilver, emphasised through slow crawls and upended pedalling motions to sharp culinary implements wielded by either butchers (or maniacs) when precariously balancing in mirrored jack knifed positions, to the broken shards of looking glasses offering the illusion of a thousand tiny refracted facets, and lastly as circuits firing along an information freeway into the ether... the power of simply standing in the shoes as the lights died made me... just stare at those platforms in amazement that anything could so gracefully be achieved.”
- Vicky Van-Hout, Form Dance Projects - blogger in residence
Image credits:
Gianna Rizzo
