See, smell, feel and hear the world like a child

Dancers Sarah Gatzonis (left) and Emma Coppersmith throw fruit in the Arts Festival performance...
Dancers Sarah Gatzonis (left) and Emma Coppersmith throw fruit in the Arts Festival performance Dirt and other Delicious Ingredients in the Athenaeum basement yesterday. Photo by Christine O'Connor.
Get set to get messy and release your inner child.

If you plan to see the Arts Festival Dunedin performance Dirt and other Delicious Ingredients, then come dressed ready to play.

Expect to depart the performance with leaves in your hair, spice on your shoes and tomato juice on your face.

The show was designed for a younger audience but adults will leave the show feeling like a child.

The dance performance is a celebration of childlike behaviour, including food fights, pulling faces and enjoying new experiences.

The smell of spices hits you when you enter the Athenaeum basement - a mix of cinnamon, star anise and coffee beans.

Dancer Emma Coppersmith enters the performance balancing piles of cinnamon sticks on her arms, but when they are knocked to the ground, the fun really begins.

As the two dancers and two musicians perform, they crush the spices underfoot and makes the sweet smell more intense.

The plane transporting the dancers and musicians could not land in Dunedin on Tuesday because of fog.

The diversion to Christchurch and bus ride to Dunedin does not appear to have tired the troupe, as they threw tomatoes at each other with such gusto, the audience was sprayed with juice.

The food fight was a refreshing reminder of health and safety being of no concern in a child's world.

When the fun gets too raucous, a dancer clears their throat with a ``ha-hum'' like an angry librarian.

But the dancer and the children in the crowd are having too much fun and ignore the demand to stop.

See the show and get carried away. Just remember not to wear your Sunday best.

-Dirt and other Delicious Ingredients is on in the Athenaeum basement at 11am today, tomorrow and Saturday.

shawn.mcavinue@odt.co.nz

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