What was meant to be a traditional kapa haka welcome for international Otago Festival of the Arts guests yesterday turned into a multicultural dance party.
More than 100 people filled the gallery auditorium for the midday performance by the Wairua Puhou kapa haka group.
It would have been nice to see the group in costume, rather than plain black and white, but the visitors were soon adding plenty of colour.
The party started from the moment musicians and dancers from Brazilian troupe Bale Folclorico da Bahia took the floor.
The spinning, twisting, kicking, somersaulting dancers did things that made you question your own eyes.
While the musicians produced beautiful, raw sounds with beaded drums and instruments which looked like bent sticks attached to a gourd and tapped with a chopstick.
It is easy to see why the troupe was engaged to perform in this year's Olympic Games closing ceremony in London.
The Samoan cast of Where We Once Belonged responded with some traditional songs and dances.
But the Brazilians were just having too much fun by then and pulled the Samoans into an impromptu dance fest.
Their enjoyment, energy and enthusiasm was immediately contagious.
A woman with a group of intellectually handicapped people couldn't help herself and joined the fray. One of the Brazilian dancers immediately grabbed her hands and led her in a twirl. She grinned. He grinned. It was absolutely delightful.
The faux men of the steppes, Comrade Z, also joined in with piano accordions, clapping and foot-tapping.
Dancers went into the crowd and pulled people into the heaving, dancing mass.
It was just hilarious and pure gold.
Festival director Alec Wheeler even tried to drag trust chairman Malcolm Farry in, but he wasn't having a bar of it.
Everywhere you looked, people were smiling.
Actually, they were more than smiling. They were grinning like maniacs,It was a wonderful demonstration of how powerful and pleasurable the performing arts can be.
Bale Folclorico da Bahia performer Jadson Nascinento said the Brazilians were greatly honoured by the welcome.
"I enjoy this performance very much. We all enjoy it. This is our first time in New Zealand and your Maori culture is very interesting to us."
Even the staff in the neighbouring Nova Cafe took a break from work to see what was going on.
"We have not seen anything this before, except on television when your Big Blacks are playing rugby," Comrade Z drummer Mikael Ekimov said.
"It is very dramatic, da? It is very energetic and solemn, too. It stirs the soul and the heart."
It did, indeed.
The bard of the great wide open Brian Turner will give a rare Dunedin reading in St Paul's Cathedral today in the St Paul's at One series.
"If you're going to read your poems, or anyone's poems come to that, then you want to do your level best to read them well," Turner told me last night.
"I'll be doing a few poems from my new collection, Elemental. I think that's what's expected of me. But I'll be tacking in a few different directions and doing a variety of things. Mainly ones that I like myself."
I've seen the Vienna Boys Choir and violin virtuoso Amadeus Leopold over the past two days and the world-class entertainment continues today, when Canadian folk music group Le Vent du Nord (The North Wind) breezes into town.
The Beat Girls also kick off Swing Time in the HMNZS Toroa hall tonight.
It should be great, but if you haven't already got your tickets then you're not going.
It's been sold out for weeks.
As usual, the Late Night Festival Club brings the curtain down on each day's play, Pennyblack and the Brokenmen on from 10pm to midnight.
