This striking modern dance sequence is from Demon Machine, a routine choreographed by Gertrud Bodenwieser. The dancers' movements become more frenzied and machinelike as the dance builds to its compelling crescendo, expressing the ascendancy of technology over humanity through industrialisation.

Bodenwieser (1890–1959) was a Vienna-born Jewish modern dance pioneer who established her Bodenwieser Ballet company in Australia in 1939 after being unable to return home during the Second World War. Demon Machine is performed here by Eileen Cramer, Shona Dunlop, Coralie Hinkley, Hilary Napier and Anne Pitsch in an excerpt from the Australian Government film Spotlight on Australian Ballet (1948). Spotlight traces the history of ballet in Australia and showcases the early challenges faced by local groups like the Borovansky Australian Ballet, Ballet Guild and Bodenwieser Ballet.