Provocative - not pornographic. Parody - not propaganda. And it takes the mickey out of every male fantasy, according to Mary Jane O'Reilly, QSM, creator, choreographer, director and producer of the contemporary cabaret show, In Flagrante.
O'Reilly has lived for more than 30 prestigious years at the forefront of New Zealand's dance scene. She was co-founder of the iconic Limbs Dance Company; in 1990 she choreographed the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games - for a cast of 6000 - and the full-length work Jean Batten for the Royal New Zealand Ballet. She founded and directed the Auckland Dance Company from 1996 to 2001; lectured in dance at the University of Auckland from 2001-04, and from 2006-11 was artistic director of Tempo Dance Festival.
She now finds herself, with just the faintest blush, "paying girls to take their clothes off". But she also finds herself, while looking forward to receiving her Goldcard in the not too distant future, with "a new voice, a voice I can own, that is satirical, smart - and a lot of fun".
"As you get more, hmmm, 'mature', your place is not so clear," she says. "I have been through all that and now I am out the other side." So while a sweet ballet school portrait of a maybe 5-year-old Mary Jane peeps down from a mantelpiece in the front room/private dance studio of her Herne Bay villa, the smart and sassy O'Reilly is busy creating another new dance genre for the country - and perhaps the world.
