Review: Tempo 09 at Tapac

If variety is the spice of choice and evenly high standards are not so important, then Tempo 09 is off to a rollicking start.

There was a definite focus, in the first of the two scheduled Late Show programmes, on the mature dancer. First up was Marieke Marygold with excerpts from her clowned and cutely corny theatrical memoir Suite Memories.

Marygold's dancing days are definitely behind her, but she still managed a hilarious takeoff of Swan Lake's famous cygnets' dance and a rather less successful spoof on the dying swan, attached to an enormous and overstuffed red satin heart with legs. All moderately engaging.

Then there was the return of the madness and mayhem that is Bipeds Productions, aka Lyne Pringle and Kilda Northcott, with their version of the late Sally Rodwell's Red Mole monologues.

Northcott sported, inexplicably, a wire coathanger in her hair and Pringle a scarlet leather biker jacket a size or two too small for their double manifestation of Rodwell's character Rhonda Gonne. Joyfully debauched.

But this night belonged to festival director Mary Jane O'Reilly, back in performance mode for her rivettingly sexy chair solo Witch Bitch, artfully performed to Philip Glass' and Leonard Cohen's Boogie Street.

She looked stunning in black tights, strapless black top with a waist bow and long black gloves and produced a diva-ish display of sensuous torso and arms, tango legs, glittering and gorgeous eyes and smile - a cougar in cameo, to take your breath away.

Duets, the following night, was an around-the-world-in-60-minutes experience, with a dozen different dances in quickfire succession.

So Dancepro Studio's Lindy Hop Scat tumbled and jived, a bit unevenly, after Jonny Williams' and Kristie Boyd's polished quickstep, and were then tapped into oblivion by TMC's Two Man Crew.

The Royal NZ Ballet's classically beautiful Katie Hurst-Saxton and Brendon Bradshaw danced to Arvo Part before Isbert Ramos and Greydis Montero hit the Cuban Groove with their copulatory salsa, followed by some high-art Bollywood dancing and Vanroe Stone ripped off Alanagh Griffin's frock in the ceroc.

Then it was back to the TMC boys, the RNZB for a bite at Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Concerto, Jonny and Kristie's lovely waltz, another sizzling salsa and an outbreak of polka dots on the bevvie of sumptuous Spanish dancers in Sevillanas. Then they all danced, briefly, Cheek to Cheek.

Whew! Yipee! And get along to Tapac for what's next. (See www.tempo.co.nz)