In Leaps and Bounds

Choreographer Stephen Page is talking in hushed tones about the sacred in art, reconciliation and breaking down barriers in a quiet corner of the Festival Centre, the performing hub of the Adelaide Festival, of which he is artistic director. It's a typically spellbinding performance from this Mad Hatter of Australian indigenous arts, whose Bangarra Dance Theatre provided the cosmic corroboree for the Sydney Olympics' opening ceremony in 2000. Then over the speakers comes the clunk-clunk of piano chords as I Go to Rio begins. "Oh, my God," says Page. "It's Peter Allen!"

Allen would feel at home in Adelaide right...