With every project we risk things blowing up in our faces. For Branch Nebula, that’s just the beginning.

High Performance Packing Tape is the OH&S nightmare that transforms everyday stationery and office consumables into the infrastructure of one person’s physical ruin. Performer Lee Wilson scales collapsing towers, hangs precariously from bridges unable to carry his weight and asks more of cheap materials than they’re ever able to give.

Pivoting deftly between visceral terror and the ridiculous, this masterclass in contemporary performance needles at our desire for self-preservation and material wellbeing with a series of scenarios that each ratchet up the tension another notch. The sterile language of workplace safety, risk assessment and best practice is thrown to the wind, and though the suspense might be killing you, it’s Wilson’s neck that’s on the line.

Branch Nebula's innovative, category-defying works have defined the bleeding edge of Australian contemporary performance for years, and High Performance Packing Tape showcases the high levels of collaboration, invention and technique that make this possible. Wilson and Branch Nebula’s co-director Mirabelle Wouters are joined by visual artist Mickie Quick and sound artist Phil Downing to create an immersive sensory world that places audiences deep in the action.

<sub>Warnings: Contains full frontal nudity, onstage smoke effects, strobe lighting, loud music or very loud effects.

PHOTO | Tristan Still</sub>