Kate Harman says, "Cockfight is not about roosters." Rather, the production's co-director says, "Male competition is at the heart of the piece [and the idea that "without one another we have nothing"].

In Cockfight, performed by co-directors Joshua Thomson and Gavin Webber, two office workers - one older (Webber), one younger (Thomson) - battle for supremacy in a combination of dance, dialogue and movement. They use their bodies and whatever comes to hand, including a filing cabinet, a radio, a phone and a pot plant as the struggle becomes increasingly intense.

"The show is really playing with the idea of transition," Harman says - the older man not letting go while the younger man is coming up and won't necessarily repeat what's gone before in a symbolic struggle also intended as a critique of modern capitalism.

"It's bigger than just these two people."

The piece was devised by dancers Harman, Thomson and Webber who are part of the Gold Coast collective The Farm, with a guest artist, theatre director Julian Louis.

"The work was born from Joshua and Gavin working together for over 15 years," Harman says.

"Gavin was teaching Joshua at the Queensland University of Technology."

They began working together and Thomson and Harman also collaborated and eventually the collective The Farm was formed four years ago to produce work ranging from traditional theatre and dance to outdoor installations, film and immersive theatrical experiences. Their particular focus is physical theatre. They've toured to Britain and Chile and several Australian cities.

Being a collective, their work tends to be developed collectively over eight to 10 weeks in intense bursts spread over the course of a year. As well as movement and choreographic work there's discussion of personal experiences, feelings, thoughts and fears to help spark the imaginations of those involved.

"The show will take us in the direction it wants to take us."

For this show there were full-length improvisations that lasted over 40 minutes each, the final work coming out of a distillation of these sessions (which resulted in a lot of broken props including stereos, phones, chairs and lamps).

Webber says Canberra will be the last stop in a six-week tour.

"We'll see if there's life in the old dog yet."

It's not quite clear whether Webber is talking about the show or himself. He says that while he is 51, "in dancer years I'm probably 105".

In Europe, he says, "they won't look at you in your 20s" and performers tend to keep dancing for much longer but in Australia, "it's a young man's game".

Webber remembers that when he was a teenager, he and his father would play tennis.

"I wanted to beat my old man."

But when he eventually did, there was something bittersweet about the victory.

"In that same moment you realise there's no going back."

All this adds a certain poignant subtext to Cockfight, which isn't to suggest the relationship between Webber and Thomson is anything but productive.

As for Cockfight, Webber says he sees it as "a work that is about that sense of rebuilding and what that means" as well as a work that moves between comedy and tragedy.

People have had different reactions when they've seen it, he says.

"Some see it as very funny, others as intensely tragic."

A lot of that, he says, comes from the age of the spectator, with older audience members, not surprisingly, taking it more seriously than those who are younger.

He says the unfolding saga between him with Thomson in Cockfight is beautiful as well as combative.

"In the end it is about Josh and I - that underpins everything."